Bucolic Scribblings

Little girl in the city

2009-02-03T15:01:00.004-06:00

You know you're raising a country kid when you pull up to a four-way stop in your little town and there are four cars (including yours) waiting to go through the intersection. Your youngest daughter looks at all the cars, crosses her arms, sighs heavily and turns to you to say:

"I really hate big cities. There are too many cars and too many people. I'm glad we aren't city people."

Edited to fix my inappropriate use of an apostrophe. Thanks Amy and Kathy for catching it!

The bugs

2009-01-20T11:50:00.003-06:00

See them wiggle, see them creep, see them crawl. Imagine them crawling all over your body and through your hair. Can't you feel their little legs walking across your skin? Itch itch itch. Scratch scratch scratch. Shudder!

We have (had) them. Unruly's school called Friday with the news no parent wants to hear.

"Your child has lice. You need to come pick her up. Now."

LICE!? OMG!! Gross gross gross! I am absolutely MORTIFIED!! We're not dirty people! She bathes and washes her hair EVERY night! I'm probably one of the cleanest people I know. I'm so organized and clean I have little spasms of panic when things are out of place or someone left a coffee ring or milk drip on the counter. I cannot stand disorganization or dirtiness. I'm so bad my family accuses me of being OCD.

Now imagine how someone who may be a tad bit OCD about cleanliness reacts when she finds out her kid has bugs. In her hair. And probably on every last bit of clothing and bedding she owns. It's a full-out battle.

We went through nearly an entire jug of laundry soap and at least four full hot water tanks washing everything that kid has touched. Including my sheets and blankets.

She got to sit with insecticide on her head and sit again, for hours, while her father combed through her hair seeking nits.

Ugh. Just writing about it is making my head crawl with imagined bugs. I made my hubs check ME for lice and nits because Unruly likes to climb into bed with me and snuggle. I just KNEW she snuggled those nasty little critters right onto my own head.

He found none, thank goodness!

So, in 7 to 10 days we get to dump chemicals on her head again, just in case we missed any of the nasty little critters.

Not getting that fuzzy feeling

2009-01-12T12:04:00.002-06:00

When I was young and in Girl Scouts I seem to remember doing a lot of stuff: Camping, outdoor activities, indoor activities that involved more than paper and crayons, learning about different cultures and people and attending different Girl Scout activities.

I had fun. I learned a lot and I looked forward to meetings. Cookie sales were part of Girl Scouts but it certainly wasn't all that Girl Scouts was about. Sales funded our camping trips and whatnot. Sales were but a blip in the entire Girl Scouting experience.

Now it seems like sales is all that Girl Scouts do.

Unruly is in her second year of Girl Scouts and I am less than impressed. The first meeting this year we were handed a packet of information and a pile of Girl Scout calendars to sell. We had to sell magazine subscriptions and nuts/candy. No one wants to buy the calendars, the nuts or candy. They want the cookies and I don't blame them.

Now we are selling cookies. This whole year of Girl Scouts has felt like nothing more than one big sell-fest. I'm not happy. Unruly is not having fun. We've missed the last two meetings because honestly, she's just not really excited about going and I don't blame her. Their meetings consist of hanging out in the church gym and coloring or making crafts. It just doesn't seem very Girl Scout-y to me. We missed a "cookie rally" Friday night because she has riding lessons every Friday night and it wasn't a very difficult decision to make. Riding lesson or cookie-selling meeting...hmmmm.... I don't know if this means she won't be allowed to sell cookies, and frankly, I really don't care.

Last year we sold TONS of cookies and as a troop raised about $1,200. The girls were looking forward to some kind of field trip or camping during the summer to enjoy their hard-earned money. Nothing ever happened and Unruly was very disappointed. To top it off, I can't seem to get a straight answer about what happened to the money the girls earned by selling all that crap.

The leaders from last year didn't continue this year so her troop was rolled into the current troop and so far, they've really done nothing but sell crap. No field trips, no camping trips, nothing. They are just going to sit in that gym and color pictures in between selling crap for all I know.

We didn't join Girl Scouts to sell stuff all year long. My daughter is not a salesman for this organization and I absolutely do not support the constant push to sell sell sell. She's 8. She just wants to have fun and be a real Girl Scout. This is not what we expected and definitely not what we signed up for. I'm pretty sure we're done. Of course, I'll leave the final decision up to Unruly, but I just can't see doing this for the rest of the year.

Half a pound of flesh

2009-01-07T11:53:00.002-06:00

Hubby and I have actually been sticking to our workout plan and using the new "toy" in the basement regularly. Three days a week for half an hour. Next week it bumps up to about 45 minutes. I lift weights and do aerobics between sets and while waiting for him to do his sets. Jump rope, jumping jacks, knee lifts, jogging in place, plyometrics, sit ups on the ball, lunges, etc. It's a start. I'm walking on the "off" days plus I have all the outdoor chores that do require some effort and I ride. So, I'm burning calories. I'm sweating.

I'm on a 1,200 calorie a day diet which we started almost three weeks ago, along with the exercising. It's been tough for me as I've had to eliminate creamer and sweetener from my tea and my coffee and switch to plain, no-fat yogurt instead of all the exciting flavors I enjoyed before. We use no butter, no white bread, no white rice, no sugar, no pasta, very, very little cheese. I cook everything from scratch (I always have) and cut out the canned veggies (too much salt). And of course, people at work always bring something bad in (chocolate, cookies, bagels with cream cheese, etc. etc.) to tempt me. I've been GOOD! I indulged in ONE (yes ONE!) peanut M&M yesterday. That's it. I keep a food diary and have been using measuring cups for EVERYTHING so I know exactly what I'm eating. There isn't any guessing going on here. A serving is measured and the calories tabulated and added to the online diary so I can keep track of intake.

He has lost around 4 pounds, which is right where he's supposed to be. Me. Half a pound. Half. A. Freaking. Pound. Why do I bother? Why do I keep trying when obviously it doesn't work for me and obviously, I'm meant to be fat? Do I need to go to a 900 calorie a day diet and work out EVERY day, twice a day?

Yes, I'm frustrated. I'm frustrated and hungry and muscle sore. But, no pain, no gain, right? *sigh*

A little something for us

2008-12-29T12:28:00.004-06:00

My husband and I typically don't get each other much for Christmas. We are kind of at that point where when he really wants something, he gets it, and I do, too. There are some things we hint about during the year and gift-giving throughout the year isn't uncommon for us.

Anyway, this year we decided to splurge on ourselves. We both need to lose weight and get in shape and although I had a membership at a local gym, our schedules were seriously limiting the amount of time we could spend there. I was only getting to the gym a few times a month, him, not at all.

For years he's been commenting about how much he wants a BowFlex. I was skeptical because it seemed like a fad to me. But, I decided to go ahead and research it a bit (because after hearing him make comments about one for the past 8 years, I figured it was a pretty big hint). And I discovered it was probably exactly what we needed to get us up off our butts.

A few years ago our schedules meshed pretty well and we lived closer to the gym so we were able to work out together and push each other. I do better when I'm being pushed, or challenged by a partner. I think he does, too.

So, now our basement is our workout zone. We have the new BowFlex. Which arrived in NINE boxes that weighed nearly 500# and had to be completely assembled! Ack. Hubby put that sucker together very well, I might add.
I also put the old stereo system down there. It doesn't get any radio stations and the CD player is toast, but I can still plug in my MP3 player and go. I have a yoga mat and my giant abs ball down there, too. I'd like to get a little TV with a built-in video/CD player so I can play some of my aerobics/yoga/pilates videos down there. Much more space than upstairs and the kids and critters aren't in the way. Every try to do a pilates plank with a kid who wants to sit on you while you do it? Yeah, not so helpful! How about crunches with the dogs trying to lick your face? Ewww...no fun!

We've started working out and I must say, it's a good workout. And it is so nice having someone push me along and sweat right along with me. So, here's to hoping our splurge will really payoff in the long run!

Spring already?

2008-12-27T07:59:00.002-06:00

It's the MidWest. It's December. This is more like what we get in the spring. What the heck?! The ice in my yard and pastures are now mud and the creek is FLOODED.

A Tornado Watch for the St. Louis area until noon.
A Flash Flood Watch has been posted until this evening.
Showers are likely in St. Louis and east this morning but isolated severe storms are possible west through 7am.
Most of the rest of the morning and early afternoon we can expect scattered showers and a few thunderstorms but from mid afternoon through mid evening strong to severe storms are likely as a cold front makes its way across the area.

Ahead of the cold front record warm temperatures in the low 70s are likely by the middle of the day.

The body bakery

2008-12-26T11:59:00.002-06:00

Mmmm...care for a little butter with that dismembered head? Bizzare-ness is all around us.

Just the stepmom

2008-12-24T10:26:00.003-06:00

Oh my. Is it really almost Christmas? Really? Sheesh. Where did all the time go?

Wild is gone for Christmas this year. She is with her birth mother, the woman who hasn't been able to spare more than 1/2 hour for her since she was born.

Yes, it was Wild's decision to spend this holiday with a family of complete strangers. The Hubster and I decided that even though we'd much rather have her home, we also weren't going to stand in her way or stop her from seeing this woman. She's old enough to make that kind of decision.

Am I hurt and angry? You betcha. Yeah, I'm only the stepmom, but dammit, I've been "only the stepmom" for 11 years. I've been there for every up and down, every hormonal freak-out and breakdown, every good thing, every breakup and disappointment. Her birth mother has NEVER been there. She hasn't been there for Wild at all but for some reason, Wild has put the woman up on a pedestal. In her mind, this woman can do no wrong. Nevermind she hasn't been a mother at all and has disappointed far more often than not.

When the Egg Donor arrived to pick Wild up Sunday evening it was the first EVER that I've seen her. In 11 years, I'd never seen her before. She looked to be about 50 years old (even though she is younger than me), was missing quite a few teeth and smelled funky, like stale cigarettes, old body odor and mold. Imagine a meth addict and you'll have a pretty good idea of what I saw, stringy, unwashed hair and all.

That is what my daughter left with. Was I uncomfortable with letting a stranger leave with Wild? Beyond description. But, again. I'm just the stepmom, there isn't a damn thing I can do about it.

Unruly doesn't really understand why her sister didn't want to spend Christmas with us, and I really didn't know how to explain it without getting ugly about it. So, I kept my mouth halfway shut and just said she wanted to spend some time with her "real mom." I think she accepted that.

So, Hubster and I are going to wrap presents tonight, and stuff just one stocking. Unruly and I will make cookies for Santa and sprinkle some "reindeer food" in the yard. We'll open gifts tomorrow morning, I'll bake a ham and in the afternoon we'll go see "Bedtime Stories."

We won't have snow, we'll have freezing rain, again. To add to the mud and freezing rain we've had for the past month.

Merry Christmas.

Pulling my hair out

2008-12-19T08:37:00.002-06:00

I just don't know whether to be grateful Unruly's school keeps such close tabs on the welfare of their students or be angry that mine seems to be singled out for some reason.

First it was the walnut juice stains on her hands. I got a call from the nurse about that.
Then it was the itchy scalp. I got a call about that and a recommendation that I use conditioner on her head.
Today it's was a call about a cat bite Unruly got last night on her hand. The nurse wanted to let me know that Unruly had a cat bite (ummm..yes, we knew) and that she circled the bite with marker so we could watch for swelling. She also proceeded to tell me how dangerous cat bites can be. Well, thanks for that, but really, I have it under control. I know about cat bites. I told Unruly to tell me if it hurt more or felt hotter and told her cats have tons of nasty germs in their mouths that could cause her to get sick. I told the nurse, quite firmly, that the bite had been scrubbed, disinfected and slathered with antibiotic ointment and then covered with New Skin antibiotic before bed last night. I also told her that I was keeping an eye on it and would contact Unruly's doctor if I felt it was getting infected, thank you very much.

Was that snotty of me? I'm frustrated at this point because it just feels like she's been singled out for some reason. We don't beat our kids. We don't abuse our kids. They are fed, bathed, clothed, housed and nurtured quite adequately. We don't yell at or ignore our kids, hell, they don't even get spanked when they probably should.

So, I'm stuck between really wanting to make a stink about this perceived singling out of my daughter and just keeping my mouth shut and being thankful that the teacher and nurse are paying attention to the kids instead of just going through their days oblivious. Because really, I do hope they are just as attentive to the kids who NEED the intervention as they are to my kid, who is just being a kid.

Got Christmas?

2008-12-11T10:27:00.005-06:00

I imagine it would be even better if the viewer were under the influence of something pharmacological, kinda like watching Pink Floyd's "The Wall" while stoned.

And the electric bill...oh, the electric bill!

Old hair

2008-12-05T09:03:00.002-06:00

Unruly climbed up on the couch next to me the other night for our nightly "snuggle time" before bed. Winter snuggle time is especially nice because we can get all nice and cozy under a warm blanket and just snuggle without sweating against each other.

She likes to mess with my hair during snuggle time and this time, she found an odd patch of hair near my right temple.

"Mommy, why are some of your hairs old?" she asked, separating the grays from the auburn.

"What do you mean 'old'?" I queried, knowing perfectly well what she was referring to but wanting to hear her answer.

"You know, old, all the color is gone and they are just white. Like old people," she explained.

"Can you pull it out for me?"

"No, mom, there are too many, I don't want to make you bald," she said.

*sigh*

"You gave them to me, you know," I chided with a smile.

"I know. And I'm going to give you more," she giggled. "Your whole hair will be old!"

Ohh...that child. She is too smart for her own darned good.

The abattoir

2008-11-29T14:50:00.003-06:00

He is now in the fridge. In pieces. He wouldn't even fit in the freaking sink whole! Seriously...I think that turkey still weighed at least 38 pounds by the time he was plucked and gutted. I don't have a pan big enough to cook him in whole and he was definitely not going to fit in my oven! So, pieces he became. I now have two turkey breasts that probably weigh more than 5# each, two drumsticks that rival those gigantic roasted things you get at Ren Faires, a couple of Tupperware tubs packed with dark meat and a 15 gallon pot of vegetables and turkey stock simmering on the stove. I even managed to harvest that last of my fresh herbs to toss in the pot. Mmmm...smells delicious! I'll freeze most of it into gallon-sized freezer bags and use it for soups this winter.

We did not butcher the other two turkeys. With as much meat as I know I'm going to have when I cook this guy we just won't have any room in the freezer for two more! And like I told my hubs...it kind of defeats the purpose of raising birds for fresh meat if you're just gonna toss 'em in the freezer. We'll butcher the other two as we want to eat them.

I'm going to braise the meat cuts instead of roasting them to keep them tender and flavorful.

T-day delayed

2008-11-28T09:43:00.002-06:00

So, we didn't have Thanksgiving on Thursday. We spent the day outside getting outside stuff done. You can't pass up a 60-degree, sunny day at the end of November!

Actually, it was planned that way. We are having our Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday, with guests. One of our guests, whom we have over for Thanksgiving every year, had to work Thanksgiving day this year, so, we moved it. No big deal. Thanksgiving is whenever you celebrate it, as long as you celebrate it with friends, right? He doesn't have any family in the area and otherwise wouldn't have a Thanksgiving meal at all.

This is our Thanksgiving dinner. Sans feathers, of course. Gobble gobble! We weighed him a couple of weeks ago and he was up to 43#. That's gonna be a LOT of leftover turkey sandwiches! And soup. And turkey wraps...and...wow.

Chilling our buns

2008-11-10T09:38:00.002-06:00

The Hubs and I are having a little contest, with ourselves. We're attempting to see how long we can go before we turn on the furnace. So far, so good. Sunday was chilly and windy so we kept the fireplace blazing all day long. I think we burned an entire tree yesterday! Don't worry, it was a dead tree that was already on our property. It had to come down, didn't cost us anything aside from the labor and the gas for the chainsaw and we didn't take down a live tree. The house stayed at a very comfortable 65 degrees all day, and even felt overly warm at times. Sure, it gets a tad bit chilly at night and mornings aren't exactly pleasant when you have to climb out of a warm cocoon of covers into the chilly air, but the temperature isn't unlivable.

Why are we freezing our buns off? Well, because. We heat our house with propane. This year it cost nearly double to fill our propane tank and when we run the furnace, we are burning not only propane, but running up the electric bill. When you total the two together, we could easily spend $300 a month to keep the house warm. It just hasn't really been cold enough to justify that cost. We all have sweaters and I have more blankets than we could possibly ever use at once.

I personally believe most Americans keep their homes way too warm in the winter and way too cool in the summer. I like the temperature to be around 62 in the winter and 78 in the summer. I'm comfortable at those temps. I've walked into people's homes in the winter and immediately started SWEATING. Eighty-degrees in the winter in your home is TOO HOT. Imagine all the resources being used up just so you can wear shorts and a t-shirt in the middle of January. Did you know in many other countries, homes don't even have central air? Space heaters are the way to go...there isn't much sense heating the whole house when you and your family are in one room, right? When you change rooms, you move the heater. That makes sense! We may end up investing in a couple of space heaters, so even when we DO turn the furnace on, we can keep it low, low, low to keep the propane use down and the space heaters can take a majority of the chill off.

So, we're going to see how long we can go without flipping on the furnace. I'm aiming for the end of November, but we'll see how things stack up.

And, yet again

2008-10-29T13:55:00.003-05:00

I can't decide whether I should be really, really irritated or not.

Remember about a month or so ago when Unruly was sent to the nurses' office for walnut juice stains on her hands? I was a bit miffed about that, especially when the kid told the teacher her hands WEREN'T dirty, they were stained.

Today I got a call from the nurse's office and I immediately think maybe she's feeling sick or something.

Nope. She has an itchy scalp and the nurse just wanted to let me know she doesn't have head lice. Okay. Well, thank you for that, but I've been keeping tabs on her head because it is head lice season and, ummm...ick. Then, and this is where I'm feeling irritated, she proceeds to tell me how to use conditioner on Unruly's head and how to solve the itchy scalp thing.

I KNOW why she has an itchy scalp today. She was being a butt about taking a shower last night and I sent her back TWICE to rinse her hair because there was still shampoo in it. She was too excited about pumpkin carving to get it rinsed entirely and I know she did a half-assed job. Her dad brushed her hair but apparently didn't notice any excess shampoo hanging around up there.

I'm starting to feel like this school thinks we are trash or lousy parents or something, and it's not such a good feeling at all. My kids are well cared for. They have clean clothes and clean bodies and a live in a clean home. We aren't dirty people but I'm really feeling like the school, for some reason, thinks we are.

I'm waiting for a call from family services wanting to do a home check because my kid had walnut juice-stained hands and an itchy scalp.

Am I being overly sensitive about this?

Trials and Tribulations

2008-10-25T09:26:00.002-05:00

A cross-post from my "professional" work blog at www.bnd.com:

Do you ever have those weeks where you just want to foist your kids off on someone else for awhile? Or wonder, maybe for a moment, why the heck you EVER thought it was a good idea to become a parent?

Yeah. It's been one of those weeks. And the week didn't get any better. There were some days I tried to come up with all kinds of extra work at the office so I could put off going home. That didn't work too well, they just called and harassed me at work. "When are you coming home? What are we having for dinner? Can I have a snack? Have you seen my library books? Where are my blue pants? So and so said such and such about whatsitsname...blah blah blah blah...."

It wasn't just a normal bad kid week. It was a bad bad kid week. Unruly got kicked off the bus. Again. Yes, my second grader is well on her way to becoming a delinquent. This is the second time she's been booted from the bus for bad behavior so she already has a rap sheet.

Why was she foisted from the bus this time? Oh. Because she punched two kids in the face. Just. Like. That. Wham. Wham.

"Mom, they kept picking on me and wouldn't leave me alone even though I asked them to leave me alone, so I hit them." Of course, to hear her tell it, she didn't mean to hit them in the face, she meant to push them away, the face punching thing was an accident. I was torn between giving her a high five for standing up for herself and locking her little fingers in one of those Chinese finger torture devices for hitting. Hitting isn't allowed, she knows this.

It's one of those fine lines a parent tiptoes. I do want her to stand up for herself, I do want her to be able to tell someone "no" when they are doing something she doesn't like and expect they will comply. I don't want to raise a little wimp who sits back and refuses to stick up for herself and is the one who gets beat up because she's a little pansy. But when do you cross that line from self-defense to assault? It can be a tough conversation to have with a 7-year-old!

So, she lost her bus privileges. On what planet is this a punishment for kids? It's a punishment to parents, no doubt, but she was loving it. Instead of spending 45 minutes on the big stinky, noisy bus, she got chauffeured to the school's front door in about 10 minutes. She got to sleep in for a week because she didn't have to catch the bus. How is that punishment?

She did lose her TV privileges for the week and I found some pretty boring chores for her to do. Whether that works remains to be seen.

Have I mentioned the craptacular kids behavior comes in pairs? No? They do. While I'm dealing with the youngest's inability to keep her little fists to herself, I'm also dealing with the oldest's inability to remember to do homework of any kind. I have not seen her bring home a single book all year long, and she is failing classes. At this rate she'll be lucky to graduate from high school before she turns 21.

I ask, every day, "do you have homework? Do you need help with homework? Did you bring anything home to study?" And every day, the answer is the same, "I did my homework at school and I don't 'have anything to study." I know she's lying, but how do I prove she didn't do her homework at school? She's 16 and she's responsible for assuring her homework is done. I can't go digging through her locker every day for homework and calling teachers at night to double check assignments. She's 16, she's past the age that I should be following up behind her to make sure she did her homework. Heck, I can't even get her to bring one. freaking. textbook. home.

Friday I got a call from her English teacher. She's failing English even worse than before (how low can an F really go?) and neglected to turn in a pretty big assignment. An assignment that was apparently mostly completed IN CLASS. How the heck do you not turn something in that you've done in class? I don't understand and she has so far been unable to explain this particular phenomenon.

Between the KO Queen and the Homework Evader, I'm at my wits end. I wonder how much I'd get for them on Craigslist...

Men vs Women: A Fat Story

2008-10-23T14:27:00.002-05:00

Sometimes I am SO jealous of men. Seriously. My darling hubby and I have been dieting together. Okay, dieting isn't the right word. We are making changes in what we eat...reducing portions, selecting more healthy foods and he's eating fast food quite a bit less.

We are both exercising. He goes for a walk during the day at work, I go to the gym 3-4 days a week. I do two Pilates classes and lift weights and do aerobics exercises at the gym.

He just walks and shovels a bit less greasy fast food into his mouth. I work my ASS off and bring my breakfast and lunch to work every day. Typical breakfast/lunch at work consists of yogurt with fresh fruit, an apple, 1/2 cup bran cereal with flax and a PB&J sandwich on whole wheat bread. Sometimes I'll toss in one of those fat-free cups of chocolate pudding.

After two weeks he has lost SEVEN pounds. I've lost half a pound. What the heck?

For him, weight loss is easy. For me, it's a constant battle. I work hard to lose very little, then get depressed because I'm trying so hard to lose and can't. I eat when I get depressed, see the cycle? So when I get depressed, I gain more weight, try to take it off again, get depressed AGAIN when the results are pathetic. Of course, I always end up gaining more than I lose.

Earlier this week he invited me to go to lunch with him, at a pizza place. I declined. He asked again, really trying to get me to go. He couldn't understand why I was saying no. I think I got through to him when I finally said: "Honey, I have to work three times as hard and eat five times LESS than you to lose even half what you do. Pizza is NOT on my list of okay food."

But he'll never really understand because it is so easy for him to lose it. He will never understand how depressed and discouraged I get.

I've battled my weight my entire life. For those who can look at someone who's overweight and say "just eat less," you have no idea how hard it can be. I eat less. A lot less. I exercise more. I really put a lot of effort into it then get very discouraged by the absolute lack of results. And no, I don't expect results in a few weeks. This is months and months of lackluster results.

I've had really, really good results in the past, but maintaining the loss is very difficult. It slowly creeps back up. At one point I was working out for nearly two hours every day six days a week for more than a year, sometimes working out twice a day, plus riding and doing a lot of heavy lifting, digging, moving type of work around the barn and at home. After I hit that weight loss plateau I started getting more and more discouraged. I tried ramping up the exercise and cutting out even more food, but the scale refused to budge. You can only live on egg whites, tuna, apples, carrots, raw peas and protein shakes for so long before you feel like you are starving to death.

So, I gave up. I just stopped going to the gym. I stopped watching what I ate. What was the point anyway? I couldn't live the rest of my life starving myself and working out like a fiend.

I've had the thyroid tested. Nothing wrong there. I had my metabolism tested and as expected, it's very inefficient and extremely sluggish. I don't know how to change that.

I'm at the point where I just don't know what to do any more.

And that's depressing.

Politics, briefly

2008-10-15T08:45:00.002-05:00

Ahh, it's that time of year again. The time of year when politics becomes the topic of discussion in so many circles, both professional and personal.

It drives me crazy when people assume that because I'm a member of "The Media" I'm automatically a "bleeding heart liberal." It happens ALL the time and actually, I find it quite offensive.

Sure, I used to be very liberal, once a long time ago when I was in college and an active member of the NORML organization. Very active. Back when I was an idealist and thought every one should be given a government hand out if they didn't have a job and needed some help. I was all for government programs to help the needy. I've spent far too long in this business and seen far too many "needy" who really aren't to believe that to be true any more.

Today, I am very much against government interference, regulations and programs. We don't need MORE government, we need about 99% LESS government. Communities, churches, non-profits and family should help their neediest members, not the government.

That might make me a conservative. But I'm not. There are too many stances conservatives take that I cannot agree with.

Really, I would classify myself as a libertarian conservative. Not quite conservative, not quite liberal. Libertarians believe in personal liberty and small government.

I am neither a Democrat nor a Republican.

I am a member of the Green Party. So, maybe the Green Party is a little bit liberal, but the party emphasizes small government and encourages non-hierarchical participatory democracy, something we haven't had in this country for decades. Social justice and equal opportunity are Green Party values. Note: social JUSTICE, not government handouts. Big difference.

That's enough politics. I just needed to get it off my chest because I am SO sick and tired of people assuming they know my political values strictly based on the career I chose.

Thank you Krista!

2008-10-13T19:03:00.003-05:00

Krista gave me an award!

This award is in Portuguese and translated says, “This blog invests and believes, in proximity," meaning, that blogging makes us 'close'.

I actually "met" Krista though a comment she made on my mom's blog and I've been reading about her beautiful, curious son and delightful family ever since. It's amazing what kind of people you'll "meet" out there in cyberspace!

I'm going to pass this award on to Suzanne at Chickens in the Road, Dana at the Homesteading Housewife, Wendy at Let the Dog In! and Liz at Will There Be Cake?

I feel like I've become friends with these women bloggers, not because I've ever met them in real life, but because of the passion that comes through in their blogs. I feel like I'm a part of their lives, or at least, given a little window into parts of their lives.

On this day, I married my best friend

2008-10-13T11:14:00.003-05:00

Dear Hubby,

Eight years. Can you believe we've been married for eight years today? And together for 11? My, how time flies. I remember our first date as if it happened just last week. The way you were so worried and shy and such a gentleman the entire night, but so thrilled that I agreed to meet you.

We've both matured and changed over the years. We've adapted to those changes. We've grown and mellowed together. Our relationship has passed the hot and heavy stage and settled nicely in the comfortable, secure stage (but still perfectly able and willing to revert to the hot and heavy stage!). This is a good place to be. I am happy. I am content and I hope you are, too.

You are my best friend. I know it doesn't feel like it sometimes (ie. I know I can be difficult to live with!), but you are the person I come to first when things in my life suck. You are the person I share my ideas, my thoughts, my hopes and dreams with because I know you will handle them gently, no matter how silly they might sound. You have been the catalyst that helps me reach some of the dreams I never really thought possible. Thank you.

We've had our ups and downs. We've had some pretty rough downs, some I thought we wouldn't get through unscathed. But you stuck stubbornly with me and here we are, eight years later. We've learned some things about each other, we've both sacrificed, we've both given and taken and survived to be better people and a stronger couple for it all. Thank you.

We don't always see eye-to-eye, but that's okay because we have learned how to try to see from the other's point of view. I'm not the greatest communicator in our relationship, but you've had the patience to listen to my ramblings and shoulder my craziness and try to understand what I fail to communicate clearly. You have more patience with me than I would have ever had with myself. I probably would have smacked myself around a few times if I had to deal with my stubbornness!

I'm not always the best wife I could be, but dammit, I make a mean lasagna and chicken parmesan, that should count for something! Sometimes I pick fights for no reason at all and you don't lose your temper with me. (I'm sticking to the out-of-whack hormones excuse.) I don't know how you do it. For that, thank you.

Happy anniversary, hon. I hope we have many, many more.

Love ya!
Jenn

Who came up with this Toothfairy crap?

2008-10-10T13:50:00.003-05:00

Worst. Mom. In. The. World. Right here. Worst. You know that worst feeling. Like if someone stepped on your face right now with dog poo stuck to their shoe it would be quite alright because you DESERVE it.

I forgot to play the Toothfairy Wednesday night. Forgot. Yup. Just like that. My youngest loses a tooth and of course she's SO excited about it. And the Toothfairy rejected her enamel offering. Just failed to show up.

Talk about a dejected little girl. Thursday morning she moped into my bedroom and flopped onto my bed, her sweet little morning-soft face turned down in a cloudy day frown.

"What's wrong, honey?"

"The Toothfairy didn't come get my tooth. I don't think she likes me."

*panic* *quick! THINK! THINK!*

"Umm, where was your tooth?"

"Under my pillow."

"Was it in anything?"

"No," she said cautiously.

"Well, that explains it!" I exclaim.

She looks at me puzzled.

"Don't you see!" I said. "Your tooth is so itty bitty and your pillow so huge she probably just couldn't find it. Why don't you stick it in an envelope and try again tonight, okay?"

She thinks about it for a moment and that explanation makes complete sense to her little 7-year-old brain.

"Ok!"

Tooth in envelope. Envelope under pillow Thursday night. Toothfairy on the prowl, determined not to make the same moronic mistake again. Pretty proud of herself for remembering the tooth this time. The Toothfairy digs into her wallet...

*panic* *panic*

"HONEY!" I holler at my hubby when I realize I have NO CASH! "Do you have any money?"

"Umm. No."

Oh. Crap.

My husband and I tore the house apart looking for change. How pathetic. We even considered borrowing from Unruly's money jar to fulfill her Toothfairy dreams. We are awful parents.

I found a half dollar piece under a layer of dust in our bedroom. He scrounged up a few quarters from the floor of his car. I found two more quarters hiding in my purse. We were saved!

A much, much happier toothless child woke up this morning jangling her $1.50 in scrounged up change in a little manila envelope.

"Mom! The Toothfairy CAME!! She remembered me!"

Score!

I want that! Wednesday

2008-10-01T11:46:00.001-05:00

When we were looking for our house Hubs and I both had chosen one or two MUSTS that the house had to have. My musts were: A fireplace and plenty of horse-friendly property.

His was an in-ground pool and space for his Man Cave.

I have a fireplace and the property.

But the fireplace has much to be desired. It's functional and warms very well, but it's not attractive at all. Seriously. It almost looks like it was an afterthought.

When I think of fireplace I think of something like this:

So, this is is what I want.

I want to sit in front of a beautiful stone fireplace and curl up with a good book. I want a faux fur rug to throw in front of it and just veg out on those bitter cold winter days.

Dirty, dirty, dirty

2008-09-26T12:38:00.003-05:00

Mortification is: Finding out your child was sent to the nurse because her hands were "dirty." Nothing makes you feel like a no-good, lousy parent faster than a teacher who thinks you sent your kid to school caked in filth.

For the record Unruly's hands do look filthy. They look pretty disgusting and her fingernails are black. She looks like she's been digging around under the hood of a car and thrusting her sweet little hands into grease and grime. I've seen mechanics with better looking hands.

But in truth, the kid was playing with the black walnuts that are falling into our yard. Gallons and gallons of odorous green balls with tasty nuts at the center became her toys. Those who grew up around black walnuts know: The juice in those green outer coverings stain like crazy and the blacker the outer coverings become, the worse the juice stains. That juice is used to stain wood and fabric and all kinds of other stuff. It's proven to be a very, very effective dye.

She and one of her friends spent an evening smashing them and handling them and playing with them. Both girls came back with black hands that no amount of scrubbing with every cleanser available in my house would remove. We tried. Oh, we tried. But I stopped short of making her soak her hands in gasoline in an attempt to remove the stain. It just wasn't worth it to me. The kid could live with blackened hands, it wasn't hurting her one bit.

I never imagined someone would be offended by her stained appendages.

She went to school with "dirty" hands. Dirty hands that really were the cleanest they've probably been in awhile, but stained nonetheless. The stain wears off, eventually. I know this from personal experience. I've had those black walnut stained hands.

But she got sent to the nurse because the teacher thought she was a filthy child. Even though the filthy child told the teacher it was black walnut juice and "wouldn't come off." But her teacher didn't listen and sent her to the nurse instead.

I. Am. Mortified. Absolutely mortified.

Out of the mouths

2008-09-25T20:25:00.003-05:00

I was having a conversation with Wild about boys. She's 16, boy problems are a given and she's having plenty of them. Unruly wandered outside to join us on the deck just as Wild muttered "All boys suck."
Unruly, hands on hips, looked her sister straight in the eye and sighed "Uh, your DAD is a boy."
"He's not a boy. He's a man," Wild responded.
Giggling Unruly piped up: "He's not a man. He's an OLD COOT!"

And their true feelings are revealed. Old coot. Wait 'til he hits 38!

Clogs!

2008-09-18T10:37:00.001-05:00

It amazes me how accurate these silly things can be with just few seemingly mundane questions. This is pretty spot on, even the job part. And I'd LOVE to live in Europe!

You Are Clogs

You are a solid and down to earth person.

You seek – and almost always achieve – a really sound balance in your life.

You are stylish yet comfortable. Mellow but driven. Excited yet calm.

You are the perfect mesh of contradictions.

No matter what happens, you have the ability to stay well grounded in your life.

People know that they can truly depend on you.

You should live: In Europe

You should work: At a company dedicated to helping the world

What Kind of Shoe Are You?

The very blustery day

2008-09-14T09:22:00.011-05:00

While the weather outside is icky (we're in a flash flood watch and high wind advisory...thanks Ike!), there isn't much I can do outside without feeling a whole lot like a drowned rat. I'm waiting for it to quit so I can go see how many trees we've lost. I heard a few crash down early this morning.

Although it's still warm and humid, it is starting to feel like fall. The leaves are changing, the horses are losing their summer coats and slowly putting on heavier ones, the mums are blooming.

And...it's apple pickin' season!
Ever notice how many MORE apples you end up bringing home when you go out to the orchard to pick them yourself? I'd never, ever buy this many apples at the grocery store!
What to do with nearly 20 pounds of apples?

Make apple crisp, of course.

So much easier than pie. You don't have to deal with that pesky crust. I get flour everywhere...pie crust is not a pretty thing for me. Toss some oatmeal, brown sugar, white sugar, cinnamon, flour and melted butter into a bowl, mix and your done.

Throw a heap of peeled, sliced apples into a buttered pie plate.

Pile the brown sugar, butter, oatmeal mix on top. Be generous!

Bake until the apples are bubbly and crust is golden. Enjoy the wonderful cinnamony-apple smell that fills your house. Marvel at how much apples shrink in the oven. Grab a spoon and eat it warm straight out of the pie plate before anyone else in the house realizes it's done.
Just kidding.

Finally, mix all the peelings in with your horses' dinner to let them know how much you love 'em.

The union reps

2008-09-13T09:12:00.004-05:00

We're here to speak to management. We'd like to lodge a complaint. We've heard rumors. Rumors from the chickens that can't possibly be accurate. Rumors about roasting pans. cranberry/walnut stuffing and mashed potatoes and some human holiday known as "Thanksgiving." We don't like what we've heard.

The rumors are true. Yes. But you haven't been helping your cause much lately. I seem to recall seeing all of you eating my rosemary, thyme and basil. That's called "self-basting," you know.

WHAT?! We're OUTTA here! That big grey horse is eating again, I think we'll go steal some of his breakfast.

We have ova

2008-09-10T08:41:00.004-05:00

We now have about 30 little chickens running around the place. Only two of them have been laying eggs because all the other egg-laying hens met an untimely demise, one way or another. We got two big, brown wonderful eggs every day. Save them up for a week and there was enough for a big ole skillet of scrambled eggs come Saturday morning.

Last night Unruly came running into the house after checking for eggs and putting the chickens in their house for the night.

"MOM! The babies are LAYING! Look! Look!" she yelled, running towards me with something cradled in her palm.

Sure enough. The Araucanas have started earning their keep around the farm and are laying eggs. We have a little green egg in the carton surrounded by big brown ones to prove it. Yay!

Now, if all those other little ones can get their acts together and start popping out some eggs, I'll start thinking about making some crepes...

Seriously!

2008-09-08T11:08:00.002-05:00

People are CRAZY. What would YOU do if you woke up to someone rubbing spices on you? Sheesh. Weirdness.

Authorities: Burglar wakes men with spice rub

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) — Authorities say they’ve arrested a man who broke into the home of two California farmworkers, stole money, rubbed one with spices and whacked the other with a sausage before fleeing.
Fresno County sheriff’s Lt. Ian Burrimond says 22-year-old Antonio Vasquez was found hiding in a field wearing only a T-shirt, boxers and socks after the Saturday morning attack.
He says deputies arrested Vasquez after finding a wallet containing his ID in the ransacked house.
The farmworkers told deputies the suspect woke them Saturday morning by rubbing spices on one of them and smacking the other with an 8-inch sausage.
Burrimond says money allegedly stolen was recovered.
———
Information from: The Fresno Bee, http://www.fresnobee.com

Hello, Gustav

2008-09-04T08:45:00.004-05:00

Hurricane Gustav is here. Well, the remnants are here, and we are thankful. I think it's kind of stuck over us right now, and I'm not going to complain. Things were getting awfully dry, dusty and brown 'round these parts and we needed the rain. As much damage as those hurricanes do to coastal cities and disrupt so many lives, we up here in the Midwest watch them coming and say little "thank yous," especially when it's dry. It's raining like mad outside, turning my browning grass green and my drooping flowers perky and vibrant again. We depend on those hurricane remnants every late summer. Funny how weather patterns work, isn't it? Katrina brought us pretty nasty storms, lightning, wind, tornadoes, the whole kaboodle. Gustav has brought us a steady, but soft, rain and very little destructive wind.

We've needed a day like this for a few weeks. Rainy, cool, dark and gloomy. Oh, sure, sunny, blue skies are great, we all appreciate them. But every now and then, I need a wet, gray day. For me, they are very relaxing and put me into a mood where I all I want to do is snuggle up on the couch with a good book and a mug of Earl Gray tea and just chill. I love them. And they force me to sit and just do NOTHING. I have a really hard time just sitting and doing nothing. It's a character flaw. I never stop unless something like rainy, snowy or icy weather forces me to stop. Well, most of the time it works, sometimes I just channel that need to DO DO DO and GO GO GO into inside tasks. I'm pretty sure it drives my husband crazy. He has no problem just doing nothing. I find it very hard, heck, I find it very hard to sit through an entire movie without feeling the urge to DO something while I'm watching.

The timing is perfect. Hubs has been sick for the past three days. Stay at home miserable sick. And now, I feel the bug moving in on my immune system. My neck hurts, my tummy hurts and my head is starting to ache. It's a perfect day to go home, curl up on the couch and sleep.

A dream fulfilled

2008-09-02T21:17:00.000-05:00

A cross post from my Green Slobber horse blog:

The girls and I visited my mom and stepdad in their beautiful California cabin this summer...10 days of pure bliss! We spent four of those days in the mountains, camping with the horses and trail riding. It has always been a dream of mine to ride in the mountains and I can now say it was everything I had hoped it would be and more. Kayleigh had a blast and led a few of our trail rides. I was a little concerned about her on some of the steeper trails as we don't really have many places in the Midwest that make the horses sit on their butts on the way down! I shouldn't have worried...she rode 'em like a pro.
My mom and Kayleigh, leading the way. We were camping near Truckee, Calif., which is pretty near where the infamous Donner party engaged in cannibalism.
Kayleigh absolutely loved being our trail boss. See her new chinks? She LOVES them! While we were out and about in the mountains they got a few scratches from the trees. She came up with a great story to tell back at camp about how a mountain lion jumped out and attacked her, the chinks protected her and Cheyenne (her horse) galloped up the mountain to save her life. She's quite the storyteller.
The views were incredible. My mom kept apologizing for the skies being so smoky from all the wildfires, but they looked pretty darn clear and blue to me. Guess I'm so used to the humidity haze around here those California mountains skies were stunning.
At the top. Amazing, isn't it? Not a soul or a bit of civilization in sight. LOVE IT!
The view I woke to every morning on that camping trip. I could live with a view like that for the rest of my life.

You know you live in the boonies...

2008-08-30T18:40:00.004-05:00

When most normal people mow the lawn they probably have the typical obstacles to avoid: trees, sidewalks, flower beds.

On most of my mowing days I find myself stopping or attempting to avoid some things that just shouldn't be there. Typically I have to wait for guineas to move out of the way and normally, they aren't inclined to be rushed. Goats, dogs, horses, turkeys, chickens and ducks are also fairly typical.

Today, it was socks and panties. Yes. I said "panties." What in the heck are panties and socks doing in the yard you may wonder? I wondered too. Apparently Unruly got "too hot," and shed the most sweat-inducing articles of clothing left on her body. Her socks and underwear. Which tells me another thing. The kid was outside, again, cavorting with the critters in nothin' but her SKIVVIES!

No, I'm not raising a country kid comfortable in her own skin. Not at all.

On another note I've started the tilling for my new veggie garden. Started being the operative word. My ground? It resembles concrete at the moment. The sprinkler is running on the area I'm planning to till in an attempt to soften it up. And here I had all these grand illusions that I'd get a BUNCH of tilling done today so I'll have everything ready to plant bulbs and wildflower seeds this fall. That's me, grand plans foiled once again by Mother Nature.

Second thoughts

2008-08-29T08:59:00.002-05:00

The separation package being offered by my company is pretty good. Two weeks full pay for every year you've been continuously employed. The deal is the same whether you volunteer to leave or get fired. Under that package I would get 6 months of full pay if I leave or get fired. Yes, I've been there for 15 years. A little crazy, isn't it?

After much conversation with my husband and an afternoon of perusing what jobs are available out there, we've decided I'm going to take my chances and not apply for the voluntary separation. Why? Well, think about it...I've been doing this job for 15 years. On the same software with little to no training in anything else. I've positioned myself well in the company as I am responsible for nearly all of the online content. Not the design, just the content.

I don't have any marketable skills, unless someone is hiring a journalist. And right now, they are firing media, not hiring. Going through the employment ads made me realize I don't have the skills I need to move smoothly into another career. I know SOME Excel and Powerpoint, but not enough. I have some management skills, but not enough.

The plan, as it stands right now barring an involuntary separation, is for me to work on increasing those skills over the next year or two through classes, seminars, certifications and self-help. I've already enrolled in a 3-day seminar next month in multi-media production and storytelling. The world of news is shifting very rapidly to all online content so having a good, solid base in how to effectively and efficiently PRODUCE that content is going to serve positively for my future career prospects.

Sure, we could get by on my husband's salary alone, but there are some pretty big purchases/investments we are planning and won't be able to follow through on those without my salary. We want to have a new barn built next spring, we need to buy a horse trailer, there are some pretty big house improvements we want to make (new flooring being at the top of the list) and we'd like to add some outdoor lighting to my riding arena. These are all pretty big dollar improvements that won't be possible if I'm not employed. Plus, my desire to compete in eventing and join a foxhunting club isn't going to happen without the extra funds.

Better and Better!

2008-08-27T10:23:00.002-05:00

Ohh...this wonderfully crappy day just got BETTER!

My company has announced MORE layoffs. Remember they just announced wage freezes? And in July they laid off 2% of our staff. "Voluntary separation" they call it. The newsroom wasn't eligible for the last round of "voluntary separations," but I would have taken it if offered.

Voluntary separation...it sounds like a disease, doesn't it? What a wonderfully politically correct way to say "YOU'RE FIRED!"

I'm applying for it.

Pissy and whiny

2008-08-27T08:51:00.004-05:00

All I want to do is crawl back into bed and pretend this day hasn't started yet. Why don't we get "do overs" in real life? Sure would make some days a whole lot easier.

The day started out badly, the Internet connection at home was utter CRAP. Did I mention I work from home in the morning and if I don't have a decent connection, I don't get any work done. If I don't get any work done, I have to stay later at work during the day to get it done even though I was up at the buttcrack of dawn to WORK? Is it MY fault the Internet connection occasionally sucks?

So I'm running late, which makes Hubby run late, which means we are BOTH staying late today, which sucks. I get to work and my stupid work computer is on the freaking fritz. What do you mean it's OUT OF MEMORY? WHAT?! Why you piece of...Mac crap. I HATE Macs. In particular, I hate my work Mac. It's useless. I mean...what the hell? OUT OF MEMORY?! It's probably a good thing all the windows in this place are painted closed or there would be one less useless Mac in the newsroom.

And I'm freezing cold. My hands are so cold I can barely feel my fingers. The nation is having a major energy upheaval and I'm freezing cold on a summer day? Something is NOT right with that picture. We conserve energy at home. We are so devoted to reduce, reuse, recycle it's almost a religion for us. Yet businesses? Don't they GET it? Don't they realize they are the ones creating all these energy increases by insisting on setting the AC on Arctic Blast and refusing to turn out lights at night? How dumb is that. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. Massive lay-offs, wage freezes, cut backs industry-wide...yet the building blazes with light when no one is here and it's freezing cold in the middle of summer. There is no common sense in the corporate world. I know this for a fact.

It just doesn't make sense and it's feeding my already pissy attitude this morning. I just want to go home.

Mom, the bus smells bad

2008-08-24T15:10:00.002-05:00

And...the girls are back in school! Someone please 'splain to me the intelligence of having the first day of school on a Friday...then making that day a half day? Oh, and to follow that up with a week of school that gets out two hours early every day? What?

Anyway, for a couple of kids who bitched and moaned about NOT wanting to start school, they were sure up bright, early and eager on the morning of the First Day. All went well, except for the fact that Wild's school is still not completed. She said students were relegated to the gym when they were there because the renovations and updates on the high school aren't done. They weren't able to get their lockers because they were all torn out and there are none yet. So, hopefully the workers will get off their butts and finish up the renovations by Monday!

The bus smells bad, according to Unruly. I understand that bus smell, and it is bad. Very bad. Stinky, sweaty little kids and stinky, sweaty hormonal teens a sweet smelling bus does not create.

Unruly seems to like her teacher and she was utterly amazed that she knew everyone in her 2nd grade class this year. In a 2nd grade class of about 60 students total, I think she's going to find it hard not to know someone. Since kindergarten there has been one, yup, just one, brand new student come to her class. Such is small town life.

The Hubster took both of them to have their hair cut the day before school. I know, I know, never a good idea to get it done that close to the First Day, but it needed to be done. Unruly was starting to look like a shaggy sheep dog, which is NOT a good look for her. Both girls got shag cuts, lots o' layers for their thick manes of obnoxious waves. Unruly is the spittin' image of her mama in the late '70s, poor kid.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Unruly will have a good school year without too many misbehavior issues and that Wild will actually pass all of her classes each semester. Hey, one can dream, right?

Up yours, OPEC!

2008-08-19T11:25:00.002-05:00

Bills are up. Gas bill. Food bill. Electric bill. It's just costing more and more to live, especially if you have a family with school age kids. I'm taking the girls school shopping tomorrow and I am not looking forward to that bill! Whatever happened to just needing Crayons, glue, paper and pencils for school? Now we need dry erase markers, washable markers, colored pencils, Ziploc bags, antibacterial wipes, Germ-X hand sanitizer and a variety of 2-pocket folders along with all the other "necessary" school supplies. Oh, and new clothes. Can't forget the new clothes for both girls. It's no wonder I'm still wearing 4-year-old shoes with very little sole left.

Anyway, with bills continuously climbing but our paychecks staying the same, Hubby and I decided we needed to do something NOW before it gets out of control. I think I mentioned before I was spending nearly $600 a month on gas for my truck. Yes, you read that right $600. Insanity! I was almost to the point where I was paying for the opportunity to come to work every day, rather than the other way around.

Last week we started carpooling in his car, which is much, much better on gas than my truck. I think we've spent right around $50 in gas so far, which is a far cry from the nearly $200 I was spending a week. Sure, we have to leave the house by 6 a.m., but it's actually been kind of nice not only sharing the drive time, but also nice having an extra two hours every day with each other.

In anticipation of outrageous propane bills this winter to keep our house warm, Hubby is building a solar heat exchanger to put on the roof of the house. I'm not entirely sure how it works, but basically, it gathers heat from the sun, which heats the air in the exchanger. The heated air is then pumped into the house via a solar-powered intake fan. Cooler air from the house is pumped back into the exchanger to be heated by the sun. It's a non-stop cycle. We'll see how well it works. He's pretty excited about it, and, if it helps keep costs down, I'm all for it. We are also looking into installing a wood-burning stove in the living room. We have a fireplace in the family room and it keeps that end of the house pretty warm, but it's not enough to warm the other half of the house. For the price of a tank of propane (which usually lasts us about two months) we can have a wood-burning stove installed. Add the solar heat exchanger to that, and we may see our lowest heating bills ever.

We've researched a wind turbine to generate electricity for us and would like to have one installed, but, at this point, it's a tad bit cost-prohibitive at about $23,000. One day...

It sure will be nice to have an "extra" $600 a month to get some much-needed house remodeling projects done! And, I've got my little eye on a new horse trailer, too. Hehe!

New Blog

2008-08-15T10:48:00.003-05:00

I don't want this "family" blog to become a horse training blog, and I was a bit afraid it would. I don't think my non-horsey readers would appreciate it!

So, I've started another blog to fulfill my need to chronicle and share my experiences on the road of training Gabe. It's still under construction as far as design goes, but it's there and I've started posting to it.

Green Slobber on My Shirt

A rat on a sinking ship

2008-08-14T14:04:00.001-05:00

Time to really get to work polishing up the ole resume'. Everyone in the company received this today. Encouraging, isn't it?

DATE: August 14, 2008

TO: All Employees

FROM: The Boss Man

SUBJECT: Wage Freeze

The Belleville News-Democrat continues to manage through an economic
downturn that is having an unprecedented negative effect on revenues,
and, therefore, our financial health. While we have taken many steps to
reorganize and streamline operations to respond to changing business
models and these economic challenges, we need to do more to control
expenses.

As an important part of that effort, we are implementing an
across-the-board, one-year wage freeze effective Sept. 1, 2008. This
means that if you are scheduled to receive a merit or salary review
between September 1, 2008 and August 31, 2009, your review will occur
one year later than scheduled. For example, if your next salary review
date is March 1, 2009, the salary review will be postponed until March
1, 2010. You will, however, receive regularly scheduled performance
reviews during this period.

This freeze is being instituted across all of McClatchy, including at
corporate and McClatchy Interactive. Employees for whom salary reviews
are pending or whose scheduled salary review dates fall before the
September 1, 2008 effective date remain eligible for their reviews. The
freeze doesn't affect salary increases related to promotions or minimum
wage adjustments.

We have avoided taking this step as long as possible. We know this
freeze comes at a time when the economy is putting stress on your
personal expenses and when you are working hard to adapt to our changing
business model. We greatly appreciate all that you do for the
Belleville News Group, and we hope we can continue to count on you as we
manage through this very difficult period. We are confident that all of
the efforts and cost control measures being made will result in a far
more stable and financially healthy company in the future.

Why yes, that's me!

2008-08-13T08:24:00.001-05:00

You Are An ISTP

The Mechanic

You are calm and collected, even in the most difficult of situations.

A person of action and self-direction, you love being independent.

To outsiders you seem impulsive, surprising, and unpredictable.

You are good at understanding how all things work, except for people.

In love, you tend to be very easy going and flexible.

The only thing you can't stand for is someone trying to change you or your life.

At work, you can stay completely calm under pressure. You handle stress well.

You would make an excellent pilot, forensic pathologist, or athlete.

How you see yourself: Logical, flexible, and unconventional

When other people don't get you, they see you as: Indecisive, flippant, and disrespctful

What's Your Personality Type?

Edited to add the definition of an ISTP personality:

ISTP (Introversion, Sensing, Thinking, Perceiving)
ISTPs excel at analyzing situations to reach the heart of a problem so that they can swiftly implement a functional repair, making them ideally suited to the field of engineering. Naturally quiet people, they are interested in understanding how systems operate, focusing on efficient operation and structure. They are open to new information and approaches. But contrary to their seemingly detached natures, ISTPs are often capable of humorously insightful observations about the world around them, and can be closet daredevils who gravitate toward fast-moving or risky hobbies (such as bungee jumping, hang gliding, racing, motorcycling, and parachuting), recreational sports (such as downhill skiing, ice hockey, and scuba diving), and careers (such as aviation and firefighting).

I KNEW I chose the wrong career!

The Gabe Files: Training update

2008-08-11T14:34:00.003-05:00

Gabe has been an absolute joy to work with. He's SO freakin' smart that I'm starting to worry he's going to figure out how to get out of work later down the line. We had a bit of a respect/halter issue in the beginning, but with just a couple of days work, that issue is GONE. He respects the halter, respects my space and keeping his eye on me during our sessions watching for signals from me, which is exactly what he should be doing.

So far he's met Mr. Beach Ball, Mr. Pool Noodle, Miss Dressage Whip, Mr. Scary Tarp, the Squiggly Rope and the Cavaletti Kids. He took each in stride, no spooking, no wide, white eyeballing of the scary things (tarps are SUPER scary horse-eating monsters!), just intense curiosity and a silly playfulness that is so funny to watch in such a huge horse.

He did, however, murder Mr. Beach Ball. Poor, unfortunate thing. He was so unafraid of Mr. Beach Ball that he kicked him around, nosed him around, picked him up in his teeth to fling him across the paddock, and finally, he stomped on him. I guess a newer, sturdier version of Mr. Beach Ball is in order.

He "whoa's" on command, he backs when I take a step back and moves nicely sideways away from me when I tickle him just a bit. He picks up all his feet and stands fairly well just ground tied while I groom him.

However, the light mist from the fly spray bottle sends him into spasms of "Oh MY GOD! It's ACID! It's ACID! I'M DYING!" when I spray him, but only when it touches his left side. Very interesting. Working on it and slowly but surely he'll get over the left side fly spray phobia .

My Gabe is a peppermint addict. When he hears the wrapper crinkling he's all ears and lips. When he first came home he had pretty bad peppermint manners and was VERY mouthy. We fixed that pretty quick because there is nothing more dangerous than a horse who is over zealous with those giant teeth. Last night when I was working him I was wearing pants without pockets so I stuck a handful of peppermints into a fanny pack for the occasional Super Good Boy reward. He figured out pretty quickly where those peppermints were...and then, the little bugger, figured out how to unzip the dang thing with his lips! I'm tellin' ya...too smart.

Just because I think it's kind of cool, I'm putting up a picture of Gabe's daddy. Gabe is the spitting image of his papa! Seriously. The last pictures I posted of Gabe he was still wet from a bath so you really can't see his grey markings so well. I need to get new, better pics of him.

He's just as handsome as his dad!

I couldn't help myself

2008-08-07T11:24:00.001-05:00

more cat pictures

Home: Where the air is like soup

2008-08-05T11:10:00.003-05:00

We're home. Our plane landed around midnight and I think I managed to get to sleep around 2:30 a.m....and up again just before 6 a.m. to head in to work. Tell me that wasn't planned well. Sheesh. Sometimes I think I can do more than I really can. What I can't do well is operate like a normal human being on four hours of sleep. It's just not happening.

When we walked off the plane and into that tunnel thing into the terminal the first thing we all noticed was the heaviness in the air. And the rivulets of water running down the interior walls of the tunnel. Humidity anyone? The real temperature here is the same as it was in California, but it feels about 20 degrees hotter. And hard to breathe. And heavy. Oh, so heavy and thick.

From golden (aka dead grass everywhere) yet dusty California to tropical, wet and incredibly green Illinois. What a difference! My skin already feels better, less like a dried up raisin and more like a juicy peach. But this being drenched in sweat as soon as you walk outside thing just sucks. I forgot how much it sucks.

Did you know that grass can grow FEET in a mere ten days? Seriously. It can. I don't know where my flower beds are, but I'm pretty sure they are hiding somewhere in the jungle that was once my lawn. Incredible. I think I saw wild animals creeping through the grass and stalking my dogs this morning. I told the hubster that if I die first while we still live on the farm, he'd best just pack up all his stuff and find a nice condo where someone else will do the yardwork for him. Because a mowin' man he ain't. He just doesn't do yard work. I do yard work and barn work while he folds the laundry. It works for me. Except when I'm gone, then it's extra work for me.

I have TONS of wonderful photos. Tons. And they are beautiful. I can't wait to share!

Hiding in the high Sierras

2008-07-30T12:38:00.003-05:00

The girls and I have been in California visting my mom and her husband on their ranch in the mountains since last week. We'll be here until next week. We spent the weekend, Monday and Tuesday really roughing it deep in the Sierras, far out of reach of any kind of cell service, running water, electricity or signs of civilization. It was WONDERFUL! We went horse back riding in the mountains. You haven't truly lived until you've viewed the moutains and valleys on top of a horse. Seriously. It's amazing.

I thought we had a pretty awesome view of the stars at our house...out in the mountains its entirely different. I had a hard time finding the familiar constellations because there are so many "extra" stars up there! I could even see the dust in the rings of the Milky Way. Incredibly humbling.

We're back at the ranch today and are planning to visit some old gold mining towns and tour an old gold mine museum. Should be fun! I have tons of pictures of us riding up the mountains but the internet connection isn't that fabulous out here so I'll save the uploading of photos for when I get back to Illinois.

He's home!

2008-07-21T17:40:00.006-05:00

He loaded right up into the trailer and traveled beautifully the two hours to his new home. Doesn't he have the sweetest face? He's an absolute doll.

He even comes when he's called...or if he hears the cellophane wrapper of a peppermint crinkling in my fingers. He's a peppermint addict!

I watched him for three hours Sunday afternoon, just amazed that he's in MY pasture. I thought of names. All kinds of names. Silly ones. Common ones. Long ones. Pretentious ones.

None seemed to really fit him.

Then, out of nowhere, it hit me and all other names were gone from the massive name jumble in my head. It was the only one that suited him.

His name is Gabriel. We're calling him Gabe (or the Gabe-ster) and he's already responding to it. I think he likes it.

Fingers crossed...follow up

2008-07-16T14:09:00.003-05:00

He now needs a new name. Stick N Rudder just isn't going to cut it when he comes home on Sunday.

I have a few ideas on the name, but I haven't decided yet. It may take awhile. Input is always welcome!

That was the most worthwhile two hour trip I've made in a long, long time. Wow. What an incredible animal! He's beautiful, he's about as people and animal friendly as they come. He kept snuffling Unruly's hair and sniffing her with great curiosity then, he'd come over, and like a dog, put his nose under my hand to get a scratch. But not in a pushy, dangerous way, in a "please pet me" way.

He's ENORMOUS. In foot height he stands 5'6" at the wither. Follow his front leg straight up to where his mane ends and his back starts, that's his wither. I'm 5'2". Heh.

The picture just doesn't do him justice in any way, shape or form. When he moves, he floats over the ground, almost like his feet have wings. He looks more like a warmblood than a Thoroughbred. I really didn't think I'd ever want a gelding, I've always been more of a mare kind of girl, but this big guy fits everything I was looking for, then more.

Can you say love at first sight? He is my new partner, I have no doubts about it. It will be a challenge because he's only track-broke (which means he's never been ridden by anyone but a jockey who wants him to RUN!!), but I'll have help along the way if I need it, and I think he's plenty sane enough not to try to turn my pastures into the Kentucky Derby the first time I hop up. Hop? Who am I kidding. I'm going to need a freakin' step ladder to get up there!

Fingers crossed...

2008-07-14T14:01:00.004-05:00

Meet Stick N Rudder.
I'm going to drive two hours to go look at him tomorrow. He's a four-year-old Thoroughbred retired from the track because he's just too darned slow for racing. I found two videos of him running at Arlington in Kentucky, and he finished at the back of the pack both times! He's just not into racing.

I've been looking for a new horse for myself since my beautiful, wonderful Star died on Mother's Day nearly four years ago. It's been a long, long search. Sometimes a heartbreaking search. Every horse I've liked was way above my price range. The ones I could afford weren't quite what I was looking for. I've been looking for another partner to just have fun with and I'm really missing a horse of my own. Chief is Unruly's, Calypso is Hubster's. And I like them both, but they're just not MY partner, ya know?

I haven't been looking for anything terribly fancy, but my only requirements are that it must be a Thoroughbred off the track with clean legs and a sane mind. My ex-jockey friend found this one for me, and he has been raised and trained by one of her friends. He's not advertised because the owner wants him to go to a good home, which is definitely what we are! I've had more than one person tell me when they die, they want to come back as one of my horses.

The man in the picture with Stick N Rudder is 6'4" tall, if that gives you any idea about the horse. In horse terms, he stands 16.2 hh. He's HUGE! And apparently, he's a sweety. He comes with clean, blemish-free legs, which is always a concern with horses off the track.

I'm so excited I can barely wait to go see him! Tomorrow, work is going to DRAG!

Where's the coffee coming from?

2008-07-14T11:25:00.004-05:00

All of Unruly's life I've used a French press to make my coffee every morning. She knows how those things work. Boil the water, dump the coffee into the carafe, cover the grounds with water, stir it, and press it down with the metal filter thing. She liked to help dump in the grounds and press down the filter.

Those carafes are pricey at about $20 a pop. And unfortunately, they are also very delicate, as members of my family have discovered when they whack 'em carelessly against the enamel sink.

In less than a year I've spent $40 on new carafes. And I got a little sick of it, so, when Hubster broke my latest carafe last week (no coffee in the morning = really crabby mommy) I decided to just go with a nice Mr. Coffee coffeemaker instead.

Unruly's fascination with that coffee maker the first morning I used it was hysterical. She has never seen a coffee maker work before and couldn't figure out how it was pouring the coffee into the pot. She watched and watched and watched, craning her neck to try to see where the coffee was coming from and commenting the entire time about it being "magic" and "funny looking."

That's my kid, fascinated by what most kids view as a common household appliance. She'd never seen one before, and I didn't realize what she was missing out on until it started brewing.

I do have to say though, coffee out of the autodrip pales pathetically in comparison to my French press coffee. There's a lack of body, a lack of depth and aroma. A lack of the strong, bitter, full flavor I'd come to love and appreciate from my French press. And I'm using about twice the amount of grounds to get the same amount of coffee and not even come close to the same flavor. That just ain't right.

Around the farm

2008-07-13T09:25:00.007-05:00

I promised pictures, here are some pictures, and a very short movie.

Willow and Margarita playing with their "toys."

Margarita being nosy.

In my garden.

And finally, Chief and Calypso having a little play time. This was shot from my livingroom window. Chief sure doesn't act like a 21-year-old pensioner!

Credits: Wild shot the photos (she's loving her new camera!) and the Hubster edited music into the movie.

Step by step

2008-07-04T22:02:00.004-05:00

When we started looking for horse property many years ago my ultimate goal was to find a place where eventually I could foster horses and help them find forever homes. We are slowly, but surely, moving towards that goal with our little piece of paradise here in the Midwest. Of course the things that still need to be done take much money, but we'll get there, hopefully sooner than later!

With hay and gas prices skyrocketing, there are A LOT of unwanted and abused horses out there. There are abandoned and starving horses, many more than there were just five years ago. The national forest in Southern Illinois is trying to figure out how to deal with a herd of more than 100 feral horses that have been dumped there over the past two years. Kentucky and Missouri have the same problem and no one seems to know how to deal with it. There are countless horses at the track who are no longer profitable and end up at auction and some end up on the killer's truck to Canada or Mexico.

I can't save them all, I know that, but I sure would like to help as many as I can.

I want to help horses like Naysa and all the other ones who have been starved, abused, abandoned, neglected and forgotten.

The man who did that to her is still loose, a year after he left Naysa for dead on the side of the road. He needs to be locked up, forever. Unfortunately, our laws are no where near as tough as they should be when it comes to animal abusers. No where near as tough.

I'm making the connections I need to make in the horse world around here, and we're creating the space we need to give them a second chance they deserve. It's a slow process, but one I'm extremely passionate about.

Connecting

2008-06-30T12:24:00.002-05:00

It's funny how sometimes a mistake can lead to good things. Recently I signed up for Reunion.com and inadvertantly clicked on "invite all contacts." So, everyone in my address book got a nice little "connect with me!" request.

For those who got it and thought I'd lost my mind (I NEVER send mass mailings), I'm sorry!

But, my extra-itchy clicky finger also "connected" me to at least three people I'd hadn't heard from in forever. People I'd all but forgotten were in my address book. Not forgotten about, mind you, but people who kind of went by the wayside as we go through life.

This morning I had three wonderful "how ARE you?" emails from my long lost friends in response to my accidental click n' mail. Which was a very, very pleasant surprise.

You know how it is — things get in the way, time becomes scarce, and friendships, especially those of the long-distance variety, take effort to maintain. And I wasn't putting in that effort. I am a bad friend. Ok. Not a bad friend. I'm a good, albeit sometimes lazy, friend.

I like re-connecting. It's fun, and with some of those "old friends," it's a nice, long walk down memory lane!

Oh, my

2008-06-27T09:35:00.004-05:00

I figured I'd better log in and post before I forget my password!

Summer is so, so busy for me. By the time I get home from work, do my outside chores, play with my horses and my kids and do the inside routine, it's almost 10 p.m. and all I want to do is hit the hay! Rain rain rain and more rain has kept the pastures, field and lawns deliciously green...but also growing at an uncontrollable rate. I never thought I'd get sick of mowing...but I'm getting sick of mowing. My 8-acre field is gorgeous with a variety of colorful wildflowers and grasses, butterflies and an assorted variety of birds (including a few quail I spotted a few days ago and some rarely seen meadowlarks), but it's now over four feet high and almost at the impossible to mow point. I keep teetering back and forth between "do I mow it now or leave it to seed and mow it in the fall when it's dry and easier to get through?" If I mow the whole darn thing now, it will be ugly for a few weeks while the grasses grow back. If I DON'T mow now, the weeds will go to seed and I'll have even MORE unwanted weeds next spring. I'm also afraid I'll take away the habitat of whatever may be living in there now: Quail, snakes, rabbits, butterflies, ground-nesting birds, etc. What a conundrum!

I actually had to get up before the sun Thursday just so I could ride. Because I knew the grass needed some mowing attention and my flower beds needed weeding and my veggies needed tending.

During the spring I hated our swimming pool because we couldn't keep the damn thing clean. These days, I'm loving it! What better way to end a hot, sweaty day working than a quick dip in those clear, cool, blue waters. Ahhh....refreshing!

Two of my guinea hens have been "setting" for just over three weeks. They are incubating...are you ready for this? Around 60 eggs! Holy guinea eggs! If they all hatch (which I seriously doubt) and live (even bigger doubt on that), what the heck am I going to do with 60 more guineas? Egads! I'm becoming the old chicken lady! We have 25 fancy, rare and ornamental week-old pullets (hens) and two Phoenix rooster chicks in the brooder in the basement. Outside we have three turkey chicks, the guineas, two ducks (yes, the others are now in the freezer, that was a non-pleasant experience), and eight grown chickens. We're almost a chicken farm!

I have a whole file of pictures I need to post. Flood pictures, chick pics, kid pics, horse pics, etc. etc. Where, or where, is my time?

Absence strengthens

2008-05-27T13:36:00.004-05:00

The Hubster is gone, adios. He's on a jet plane headed to Las Vegas for the rest of the week. For a work conference...uh huh. I wonder how much "work" will get done compared to "fun."

All weekend he kept asking if I was going to miss him. Well, of course I'll miss him. But I won't MISS HIM, like desperately pining away for him in my robe whilst cramming bonbons in my face and watching bad daytime television. Is that awful of me? I'm a firm believer in the "absence makes the heart grow fonder" concept. Every now and again, couples just need some time APART.

Our allotted time apart was far overdue. I can always tell when we get to that point because everything he does starts to drive. me. crazy. His sound of his chewing at dinner. Crazy. The way he breathes. Crazy. The way he likes to walk around in his boxers. Crazy. The amount of time he spends in the bathroom. Crazy. How he fixates on all things geek. Crazy.

See? Time for a little quality days apart, yes? I'm sure he'll have fun. And the girls and I will have fun too. Unruly will adopt my bed as her own until Hubster gets home, which is quite all right with me. Far too soon she'll be too old to cuddle up with ole mom, so I'll get as much cuddling as I can now.

But while I'm enjoying our time apart, I'll also be cursing his absence. Because we still have a party to host Saturday. And he doesn't get home until Friday night.

By the way...I made him angry twice this weekend because I did a couple of things I've been asking him to do for ages. A long time ago I decided I wasn't going to be a nag. I'd ask him twice, and only twice, to do something, then give him some time to do it (a month or so), and if it didn't get done, I'd just do it myself without saying a word. So, that's what I did.

I've been asking him for about a month to get the basement straightened up. It didn't happen and it didn't happen. So, Sunday, I did it and he got mad.

Monday the rain let up long enough for me to climb up on the roof and seal around a vent where we believe there is a leak. I asked him back in FEBRUARY to see about doing something about it. In April I purchased roof sealer specifically designed for such a problem and I reminded him again to please climb up on the roof and seal around the vent in April. I reminded him one more time about three weeks ago and then I dropped it so I wouldn't break my "no nagging" rule.

I figured after three reminders and four months and still no action, it wouldn't be done. So, I did it. It took all of 20 minutes. Seriously. And he got mad that I did it.

Please explain to me why he would get mad at me for doing something that needed to be done after I gave him FOUR MONTHS to do it? I'm all confused.

Diarrhea, snotty nose, scabby lips...oh my!

2008-05-24T09:38:00.003-05:00

We brought the "kids" home two weeks ago yesterday. Yes, I have pictures, just don't have them downloaded yet. They are so sweet! Dubbed Willow and Margarita, the doelings didn't want anything to do with us for the first couple of days. We couldn't touch them and if we moved too fast around them, they'd skitter off like we were goat killers with long, razor-sharp teeth.

Today is a much different story. They follow us around like puppies, start "maaa'ing" like mad as soon as we pull up in the driveway or walk outside. They just like to be with us, so I guess we've become part of their herd.

The babies, however, have not come without some issues. Poor little Willow has had a bad case of diarrhea for about five days. They both developed pink eye, Margarita has an incredibly infectious goat/sheep/human virus called "sore mouth," which is kind of like a giant cold sore on her mouth (and we can get it on our hands) and yesterday morning Margarita had yellow snot. Fun, eh? I was ready to ship them back to their breeder. The snot was the last straw. We loaded those babies up and off to the large animal vet they went. Both got fecal exams, general body exams and diagnoses.

We can't do anything about the sore mouth. It just has to run its course and Willow will most likely get it, too. We have to be absolutely diligent about washing our hands so we don't get it. Willow's case of the runs isn't parasite or disease related, thank goodness. The vet thinks both of their immune systems were a bit compromised because of the stress of being weaned two days before we picked them up, the change in environment and the change in diet all in one fell swoop. So, all these illnesses hit us at once. Yay us! Both girls are now getting penicillin shots and doses of a probiotic to get their little systems back in order. I have discovered goat skin is MUCH tougher than horse skin! And there isn't nearly as much meat/flesh to stick a needle into. The needle slides right into muscle on the horses...the goats, its a bit more like jabbing leather. Poor girls.

It's a good thing I really like them a lot. They are so much smarter than sheep and quite personable. But they still better stay off my truck.

Where are the cheap artists?

2008-05-17T20:30:00.004-05:00

I must really be out of touch. I had to cover an art fair/show for work today so I was out wandering around, chatting with strangers and artists alike. It's what I do.

And looking at stuff. Paintings, photographs, sculptures, jewelry, glass pieces and wood and stone work. They were, for the most part, beautiful pieces and I found several of them I wouldn't mind having in my own home.

But not at $600 or more a pop. I saw a painting (GORGEOUS!) for $8,000. EIGHT-THOUSAND DOLLARS, people. Okay, the jewelry was a bit cheaper. I could have a hand-crafted necklace for the low, low price of $400. And it kind of looked like something I could run on over to Claire's and pick up for $15 or $20.

Folks weren't just browsing, they were buying, and apparently, after talking to some of the artists, buying a lot. Hubby and I do okay with our combined salaries and we're pretty close to a brand-new tax bracket, but I couldn't even begin to imagine plunking down a few thousand of my hard-earned bucks for a painting. Not when the Hobby Lobby sells prints for $20 and frames for $40 or so.

Not that I'd complain too much if I could pay those prices for art and not feel a twinge of guilt for such extravagant spending. But the guilt would get me. Seriously. I would feel all kinds of guilt.

As I watched these people buy high-priced art willy-nilly, I kept thinking that the high gas prices, high energy prices and economic "slow down" haven't touched them at all. Is it just us middle-and upper-middle class families who are starting to feel the pinch? Things don't hurt, yet, not for us any way. But I know a lot of people who are hurting and scraping more than they have ever had to scrape before. These are the same families who were in the position we are in now, and it's a position they were in not to long ago...they made enough to pay all the bills without worry and still have some left-over to play with. Now they are hurting. I'm starting to worry we won't be too far behind. We're already starting to cut some of the extras in preparation for even harder times, which I have a pretty solid feeling are on their way.

It's scary. We've worked so hard to get where we are, but it feels like the whole economy is working against us. You get ahead a bit and get stable, then everything starts going up and up and up, and your stable budget starts to make a little bit of noise.

I guess that means I won't be buying that $8,000 oil of an abandoned barn on a wide-open prairie with the dark storm clouds rolling in any time soon. And you know, I'm okay with that.

Mommy fails, again

2008-05-16T10:42:00.003-05:00

I am a bad, bad mom. The worst sort possible. I'm a forgetful mom and Unruly reminds me CONSTANTLY how forgetful I can be. "Did you forget, AGAIN, mom? Sheesh." Not an uncommon phrase around here.

Yesterday Unruly lost yet another tooth. Of course, she went and lost it because she couldn't seem to keep her teeth off another little kid's WebKinz. They were playing lions, or something equally silly, and Unruly attacked that WebKinz with ferocity, yanking out a loose tooth in the process.

Anyway...the Tooth Fairy seems to be just as forgetful as Unruly's old mom. Despite carefully tucking the tooth beneath the child's pillow, the Tooth Fairy failed to materialize and leave the loot behind. I feel terrible and she was SO disappointed.

Of course, I had to come up with some kind of creative excuse for the Tooth Fairy's lax ways, right? "Maybe she couldn't find your tooth, honey," I offered hopefully.

"Mom, she's the TOOTH FAIRY of course she can find it!"

"Well, maybe LOTS of kids lost their teeth yesterday and her schedule was too packed to get to yours last night. You did go to bed kind of late," I explain. Surely she'll buy into that excuse, right?

"Hmmm...maybe. I dunno," she contemplated.

"You can try again tonight," I said, mentally admonishing myself to REMEMBER to leave the cash and take the tooth tonight.

"Hmmm...okay. But if she doesn't remember again, I'm telling Santa she was a bad Tooth Fairy."

Spring has truly begun

2008-05-13T10:16:00.003-05:00

If the blooming flowers and fully-leafed out trees don't give spring away, Unruly surely does. How do we know spring has arrived at our house? She quits wearing shoes, entirely. As soon as she gets through the door after school, the shoes come off and don't go back on unless I force her to put them back on with threats of tossing her in the pond. I can't count the number of times I've had to mop muddy little footprints off my kitchen floor or yell at her to GET OUT! of the horse pasture without shoes on! Finding a glob of chicken poo stuck to the bottom of her feet isn't unusual. Pedicures? Forget about it.

How else? Let me count the ways:
1. Frogs and toads become regular visitors into my house. Uninvited by me and quickly evicted as soon as I learn of their presence.
2. Armloads of wild flowers picked by enthusiastic kid hands must find homes in baskets and vases before they wilt and drop their petals everywhere.
3. Worms are saved from my garden hoe on a daily basis. Unfortunately, sometimes saving them from a deadly whack of the hoe means they end up in a chicken gullet instead.
4. Unruly manages to locate every bird nest within a 1,000 foot radius of our house and I have to help her check on the hatching status of the eggs nearly every day.
5. A variety of bugs learn what it's like to live inside a jar.
6. Little bare footprints leave deep, muddy impressions along the creek as she searches for frogs, toads, turtles, minnows and snakes.
7. When she catches her first snake of the season we'll have to have our annual "what's poisonous, what's not" talk again. Garter snakes and black snakes are okay. Water moccasins and rattlers are not.
8. Keeping clothes on her becomes more and more difficult as the weather warms up. Already once this season I busted her bouncing on the trampoline in all her natural glory. The kid has NO modesty. None.
9. The inquiries to be allowed to go skinny dipping become more frequent. The pool isn't open yet, but the requests have already begun.
10. Some of the seedlings in my flower beds will undoubtedly fall victim to her indiscreet weed pulling.

Not so pumped

2008-05-12T09:09:00.004-05:00

Occasionally we hold a little get-together at our house. Invite a few friends over, toss some flesh on the grill, fill a cooler full of beer and light up a bonfire for nighttime revelry.

The Hubster decided he wants to have a BBQ/Bonfire/Pool party at the end of the month. Which is all fine and dandy. I'm all for having some friends over and just hanging out. However, in the past, even though it's typically Hubster's idea to plan the party and invite all the peeps, I get stuck with all the preparing, cleaning, cooking and shopping to make sure the party is a success. Somehow, it always works out that way. He decides he wants a party, I get to do all the grunt work to prepare for and execute said party.

Well, this time, he said he'd take care of it all. Of course, I had to bitch that I always get stuck with the work part of the party when he plans them before he stepped up to take on some of the responsibility. He promised I wouldn't have to worry about spending the night before in the kitchen prepping food or the week before steaming carpets, scrubbing floors, cleaning the house, mowing the lawn, gathering firewood, shopping, cleaning the pool and figuring out where to find more chairs and tables. GREAT! I thought, a party where I can just relax and ENJOY! I'll do a few things and let him do the rest. It's HIS party afterall.

Not so. Conveniently, he's being shipped off to Las Vegas for a work conference the week of our party. And he gets home the day before the party. So, guess who's going to get to do all the grunt work yet again? Yup. Me. *sigh* I knew this was going to happen. I KNEW it. Deep inside I knew I'd get to be the "one who makes it all happen" again.

He'd better have a really, really good reward for me when he comes back from Sin City. That's all I have to say about that.

Closer to self-sustainment

2008-05-07T14:34:00.005-05:00

My momma's gonna say I'm crazy. But that's okay, she might be right. But craziness tends to run in the genes ya know.

We have organic, free-range, home grown eggs. We have organic, free-range home grown duck meat. We will soon have organic, free-range home grown honey, veggies and herbs.

And next year, we'll have organic, free-range, home grown milk, yogurt and cheese.

These little Nubian/Boer girls (twins!) are coming home Friday. They don't have names yet and are two months old.

Look at those ears! Cuteness defined.

She looks more like her momma than her papa.

And the added bonus is these little buggers will eat the weeds the horses won't touch with a ten foot pole. Yay! I refuse to spray weeds with poison and I'm getting a little bit sick and tired of pulling them out by hand.

Nature's fury

2008-05-07T08:02:00.006-05:00

While all the grass and trees are vibrantly green and succulent now because of all the rain we've had, we still have one little problem.

Okay, make that one HUGE problem.

Look to the right of the pond, see where the land just kind of disappears? It used to be part of the dam.

Here's a closer look. Yes, that is my pond seeping through the dirt. The pond is normally about four feet wider, but this nice big hole is draining it.

All that water rushing out of the pond also created a huge basin at the base of my brand new waterfall. The basin is about 20 feet wide at the top and probably close to eight feet deep. The widest point is where the highest point of the dam USED to be. Before it washed away.

Look, I'm IN the hole! It's over my head. I could practically LIVE down here, but I don't think the snakes and crawfish would like the company too much. And exposed roots aren't exactly my idea of art nouveau decor.

I don't need to be convinced that water is the MOST destructive force on the planet. This was caused by rain. Too much rain, too fast and too frequently. And what's even more frustrating...as we are losing one end of the pond, the other end is rapidly filling up with silt from the several hundred acres of farm fields that drain into it. I guess I could feel a bit better knowing that a lot of those fields now have pretty good sized ravines running through them. And I have all their dirt. HA! Take that!

We are still trying to figure out how to fix this issue, and we need to get it done pretty quickly. But not only is water destructive, fixing the destruction is going to leave an equally enormous hole in our checking account. *sigh*

Timothy, clover and alfalfa, oh my!

2008-05-04T19:56:00.005-05:00

My happy horses getting fat.

Are you taking pictures of ME? Did you get my good side? I need a scratch.

Just leave me alone. I'm eating. I'm old and grumpy and I need all the energy I can get to continue to be old and grumpy.

And it's done

2008-04-29T08:59:00.003-05:00

Following the good advice of several people, I made the call this morning. I called the county animal control unit and suggested they may want to swing by take a look at the horses at my neighbor's property. That I was a bit concerned about their condition and thought maybe a more "expert" opinion would be in order.

I didn't leave my name. I didn't leave a phone number and I called from work, just in case they have caller ID. It's in someone else's hands at the moment, but I can guarantee that I'll be keeping a close eye on the beasts any way. They will NOT starve to death while I'm watching. No way.

Call...or wait? Or?

2008-04-25T10:25:00.003-05:00

Way back before Thanksgiving a horse died. It died out in a pasture near a road I commute daily. It was one of a herd about about five other not-so-healthy looking equines.

For about two weeks it laid out there, the gray body visibly bloating and changing as it decomposed. And the rest of the herd remained in the pasture with their fallen herd mate. Gross eh?

Finally the owners covered the body with a tarp. But it continued to lay out there, rotting. Every day I looked to see if it was still there, wondering if there was something I could do, someone I could call to get them to dispose of that poor beast properly. I'm pretty sure "improper disposal of a livestock carcass" is a crime.

Fast forward many months. Up until a week ago the tarp-covered corpse was still there. I noticed yesterday (April 24) that the corpse was finally gone. I guess with the warm weather and the wet it started smelling pretty awful. You know how bad a mouse smells when it dies in your walls? Imagine about 1,000 pounds of rotting flesh, in the heat.

So, it makes me wonder. How can you leave a horse dead out there in the field, with the other horses, and not do anything about it? I wouldn't be able to walk out to feed the other beasts and look at that body for more than six months and be okay with it.

I've lost two horses over the past six years and with each awful loss, the bodies were gone within two days. It's not that hard to do and it's not expensive. Fifty bucks and the rendering company will come out and pick up the body and dispose of it. In my opinion if you don't have an extra $50 or $60 to handle the emergencies that always come up when you have horses, you shouldn't have horses. They are a luxury, not a necessity.

Which leads me to this question: When do you get involved in a situation where you think horses are being neglected? Our neighbors have three horses, all in very poor body condition (ribs, hip bones and spines visible), and they just acquired two more. Are they starving to death? No. Are they much, much thinner than a healthy horse should be? Yes.

And they now have five horses when they could barely properly care for three. Would you make an anonymous call to the humane society? Would you say something to your neighbor? Would you just turn a blind eye for now and just keep a close eye on the horses to watch for more weight loss/neglect?

I guess I should also mention I've already made one complaint call to the county about them. Their property was an absolute disaster. A mess. Garbage and junk EVERYWHERE. It was disgusting and a clear violation of county ordinances. The county came out and warned them to get it cleaned up in a month or face a $500 fine for each day they continued to violate. They have cleaned it up, somewhat, but I feel better knowing the county is now keeping an eye on their nasty property.

I'm pretty sure they know someone called the county on them. I'm not so sure they know it was me. I am, however, a little worried that if I make yet another complaint, they will figure it out and may make our lives miserable.

Suggestions? Ideas?

We know what our food ate

2008-04-18T14:24:00.007-05:00

We've tried to raise the girls with a healthy attitude towards food. Specifically, towards meat. They know where it comes from. They know that steak and hamburger was once a cow, bacon, a hog and venison is Bambi.

For them, meat doesn't start out all clean and neatly wrapped up in cellophane in the refrigerated section at the grocery store. They know the meat we eat once had a face and I honestly think that makes them respect and appreciate our food a little more.

Unruly isn't a big meat eater. She never has been, even once telling me she just doesn't like the way it tastes. The child will eat a plate heaped with broccoli and spinach and lima beans before she'll even think about chewing on a piece of steak or munching on a hamburger. I'm okay with that.

Recently the whole "where does your food come from" knowledge has taken on a whole new spin.

Meet one of The Ducks.

We have eight of these giant Pekins. This one is only 3 weeks old and is already nearly the size of a chicken.

None of these ducks have names. Can you guess why?

These guys are eatin' ducks. They will go from yard to freezer at the end of May. Unruly has been okay with the idea of them being food since we impressed it upon her at the very beginning when they were just cute little balls of yellow fluff. Sometimes she says she feels bad that they will die, but she understands where her food comes from. She's actually expressed an interest in trying duck l'orange or roasted duck with cherry sauce, which kind of surprised me.

I like knowing our future roasted ducklings have been raised humanely with kindness and with consideration about what a duck needs to be happy and healthy. They've had an opportunity to swim, bask in the sun, catch bugs and eat grass. Something all those factory raised ducks and chickens never get to do.

These little girls, on the other hand: Aren't for eatin'. They're for egg layin'.

This is a Rainbow Egg Layer mix...meaning we'll get blue, green, white, brown, beige and speckled eggs from them when they grow up to be hens in a few months. Cool, eh?

And this unusual-looking thing?Is a Guinea hen. Hubby says they're "ugly." I prefer to view them as "artistic." And their purpose in life is to amuse me with their antics...and to eat bugs. Mmmm...yummy!

Rethinking the commute

2008-04-17T13:22:00.003-05:00

These gas prices are starting to hurt. Hurt enough to make me really seriously consider job-searching closer to home. This isn't even a matter of me wanting to leave my current job, I enjoy my job, it's purely a matter of economics.

Let's put it this way. Once upon a time, when oil barons were only a little bit greedy and not wipe-their-asses-with-$100-bills greedy, I spent an average of $5 a day to commute to and from work. Now, I spend $20 a day. That's $100 a week and $400 a month. In gas. Just to get to and from work. That's just over one-fourth of my entire monthly wages. Which is INSANE. It's not a dire situation, not by any means, but when I think "$400 a month, in gas, just to get to work," my heart flip-flops a bit and all the things I would RATHER do with $400 goes through my head and I feel a little faint.

So, I started thinking about what other things I could, aside from doing the reporter gig. I could freelance, but that is so hit and miss with no guaranteed income that I'd be better off staying put. I could go back to working at a stables, mucking stalls, exercising horses, etc. etc. But that job pays dismally. There's no money in horses unless you have it to begin with.

I would really dig mowing lawns and planting trees and plants all day. I would also enjoy driving heavy equipment, like a bulldozer or a crane. That would be awesome. I could work at a dairy farm...there are plenty of those around us!

Notice a trend? I'm looking at outdoor jobs. I've always hated working inside and was really, truly happiest when I did work outside, with my hands and my whole body, rather than just driving a telephone and a keyboard most of the day. I loved the jobs I've had in the past where I can finish my day, look out over what I actually physically accomplished that day, feel the work I'd done, and called it a good days' work.

The field trip

2008-04-15T09:06:00.003-05:00

There is almost nothing in this world that can make you feel old and out of shape faster than spending the day with running with a herd of first graders.

I took the day off work yesterday to spend a lot of fun-filled hours with the youngest goober. Two of those hours were spent on the school bus with a whole bunch of little curtain climbers. Oh, THAT was fun! My ears were ringing by the time we arrived at the St. Louis City Museum. School busses are just as awful as I remember them being, by the way.

In all the years we've lived in the St. Louis area I've never been to the city museum. I've been just about everywhere else, but never there. I don't know why.

Holy cow. What a day! We climbed, crawled, jumped, ran, explored, swung and bounced all day long. My knees hurt today, but that's okay. Unruly and I both nodded off on the bus ride home, along with about 90 percent of the rest of the first graders. It kind of smelled like kid sweat.

The biggest kid-friendly feature of the city museum is a four story "jungle gym" built with pieces-parts of just about anything: rebar, former construction steel, a couple of old planes, a stone castle tower, cables, an antique fire engine, old culvert pipe, steel wire, giant wooden vats that were once used to brew some kind of alcoholic beverage and on and on and on.

It was absolutely incredible. And a bit scary. I didn't climb up in the four-story high "tubing" made of rebar and wire (yes, I was a chicken), but Unruly did. She couldn't get enough of it, that little daredevil. We crawled through tunnels and slid down a three-story slide that was FAST!

By the end of the day I was starting to feel old, but sliding down slides, swinging on ropes and crawling through dark tunnels sure made me feel like a kid again.

And that's a good feeling, even if it was only for a few hours.

The best part? An entire day of just Unruly and I spending time together and letting our hair down. That was the best part.

The past couple of weeks, truncated

2008-04-07T08:56:00.002-05:00

We are slowly drying out. After a solid week of rain things are starting to look a tad drier. At least the puddles are smaller and the mud is only knee-deep now, rather than waist deep.

Oh, and the window next to MY side of the bed is leaking. Fabulous. Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. All. Night. Long. It's TORTURE. It has been leaking for a couple of months (and I asked Hubby to PLEASE fix it a couple of months ago, to no avail) and we now have reason to believe it's not just a faulty window frame....it's the roof. *sigh* If it's not one freaking thing, it's another. I wonder if a couple of cans of that expanding foam crap will fix it, at least temporarily until we can get someone out to take a look and find out what's really going on up there. Damn rain.

Between the failing pond dam, the leaking window/roof, the hip-deep mud and truck-sized potholes in our driveway you'd think it was monsoon season.

It was finally dry enough Sunday that I could get out into the yard and mow without sinking the tractor up to the axles in slop. Yay!

And, if it doesn't rain today, Unruly and I will be planting tulips, daylilies and wildflowers. Double yay! I've been itching to get out and do some digging around in the dirt. I don't think my day at work will go by fast enough and all I'll be thinking about all day long is riding and planting!

I am now the mother of a 16-year-old. Someone, please say plenty of prayers for us. Actually, Wild has made enormous maturity strides in the past few months. It's almost like she's becoming human again on most days. Yes, we still have the occasional moments of monster-like mood swings, but I can deal with the occasional attitude compared to the constant foul mood we were once forced to live with. It's pleasant and she is once again, mostly pleasant to live with. We still do have that issue with the two sisters fighting and egging each other on, but I really do think it's a sibling thing. What siblings actually get along with each other while they live together? Not many. I fought with my sister constantly, now, we are best friends. One day, I hope, Wild and Unruly will figure that out and be close.

I have pictures to post, but I'm at work and my camera is not. Such is life.

Mud, mud, mud

2008-03-20T10:35:00.003-05:00

Some of you may have heard: The Midwest is flooding. That would definitely include us. While we are fortunate enough to be on a hill and safely out of reach of our swollen, muddy creek, our well isn't. It's underground, where wells belong, and it taps into an underwater creek (or crick, as I refer to it). The crick, it's floodin', and with the floodin' comes mud. Underground, afterall, means dirt. And flooding means the dirt all gets stirred up and ends up in my water glass when I run the tap. Mmmm....gritty water you can chew! It smells kind of funny, too...so tasty!

My drive to work now takes 15 minutes longer (as if being on the road for a freakin' hour isn't long enough!) because our little country road that runs through the bottoms is under several feet of swift-moving flood water choked with tree limbs, corn stalks and the occasional unfortunate small animal. I love my truck enough not to be a big enough hick to try to go whitewater rafting in it.

And all this means my horses are butt-deep in mud AGAIN and I'm gonna guess about 50 percent of the grass seed planted in the pastures last weekend washed away with the rain. *sigh*

Slaughter

2008-03-17T08:51:00.003-05:00

Sunday dawned sunny and warm with the promise of a full day to get a bunch of outdoor work done. I was ready to finish taking out that last line of barbed wire fencing, mow down some weeds to make room for wildflowers and native grasses, overseed the pasture and ride Calypso.

Instead, it was a day of massive, senseless slaughter. Somehow my little flock of chickens got locked OUT of their coop Saturday night. (I have my suspicions about how that happened, but will remain mum on the subject. Let's just say it has something to do with the youngest member of our family.) Early in the morning on most days we let Akasha, our German Shepherd/Akita/Husky mix out to run for a bit. She's a confirmed chicken killer and can't seem to help her instinct to chase down small animals and murder them if she can catch them. She chases rabbits, but never catches them. We never let her run unless the chickens are locked up nice and safe in their house.

Not realizing someone (*cough* Unruly *cough*) had locked our flock OUT of the coop, we let her run. And run she did. Right into the flock to murder eight of my hens and the little duck. Now, I don't know if she killed them ALL because we only picked up four corpses. She doesn't eat them, she just kills them. Five bodies were not accounted for and I'm going to assume those five were murdered during the night by whatever wildlife likes to dine on plump hens.

I admit I cried. Yes, they are just chickens. But they all had names. And most of them would let you catch and hold them. They all had their own personalities: The showoff, the loner, the talker, Mrs. Bossy, the cranky old lady. I liked to sit and just watch them be chickens, pecking around in the pasture, chasing bugs, just being happy chickens and amusing me with their antics.

The yard and pastures look like a feather-bed exploded in them, piles and puffs of feathers in all shades cling to the ground. And the lifeless lumps lying in the yard broke my heart. It is our responsibility to protect those dumb birds from predators. And we failed to protect them. Failed. And now they are dead.

We ordered a new batch of chicks Sunday afternoon, which we were going to do before the slaughter anyway, but, I felt guilty that we couuld replace them so easily with just a click of the mouse and a credit card.

Snippets

2008-03-14T09:59:00.004-05:00

I heard frogs in the creek last night. Spring is definitely near!

The daffodils are almost ready to bloom.

This morning, Wild told me I was cute. What an ego booster! That's quite a lot coming from a surly teenager. I feel cute today.

Last night I helped four little Brownies make their sit-upons. And I had fun!

While Unruly and I were waiting in line at a fast food joint, three big cowboys came in, stinking of cow shit and laughing. Most likely they had just come from the weekly cattle auction just up the road and were getting a big bucket of Kentucky fried. They had very, very heavy Southern accents. Unruly listened to one of them talk for awhile and turned to me to say, in her best imitation of Southern drawl "Now that's a REAL man!" The big burly men heard her and grinned. She confided in me, again in her best Southern drawl "I like the way they talk."

I learned today that last week I interviewed a killer on the street. He hadn't been arrested yet, but had already killed a 96-year-old woman in her home. He was arrested and charged yesterday with the stabbing/bludgeoning murder of the poor woman. *shiver* Freakin' out.

Tomorrow Hubby and I are going here with a bunch of friends. We did this last year and had an absolute blast! I'm looking forward to it.

I think I'll keep him

2008-03-10T13:21:00.002-05:00

I called the TV show lady and said "Thanks, but no thanks." Not only did I NOT want to appear on a television talk show with my family in front of millions, do you have any idea what a pain in the butt it would be to try to find someone on short notice to take care of all of our critters while we gallavant around New York? Yeah, not going to happen.

So, don't look for us on Tyra any time soon!

Have I mentioned lately how much I love my hubby? Oh, what a great guy he is! Saturday morning we got up and discovered the front tire on my truck was flat. Brand new tire...flat. Dammit. Those tires are HUGE, by the way. Now, don't get me wrong, I can change my own tire without a hitch. I've changed plenty. But the problem is, I really didn't want to. Those tires are HUGE! And heavy. And the spare was all nestled up snugly beneath the bed, where scooting around beneath the truck on my back would have been required.

My hubby, my darling computer geek of a husband, slid right under my truck, in the mud and grass and gravel, retrieved the spare and changed my stinkin' flat tire for me. What a gem. What a keeper!

Now I have a flat tire in the bed of my truck waiting to be repaired or replaced. I sure hope it can be repaired. I don't exactly have and extra $130 floating around at the moment to replace the stinkin' tire. Especially with the pasture needing reseeding, the driveway gravelled, new fencing installed and a barn/run-in to build. If it's not one thing, it's another.

A "wow" moment

2008-03-06T06:35:00.003-06:00

Some of you know I also write a column/blog for the paper I work for. Awhile ago I wrote about parents who spend an insane amount of money on clothes for their kids and that I just don't see the point in it. Anyway...I received this last night in my work email:

Hi Jennifer,
I read an article of yours in the Belleville News Democrat re: designer clothes for kids. We’re doing a show on Tuesday about a child who has a personal stylists. We’re bringing on families who spend exorbitant amounts of money on parties, clothes, hair cuts, etc. We are looking for a family to come on and represent the other side- the ones who see it all around them and feel the pressure but don’t succumb. If you and your husband are interested, I would like to discuss the show with you. Please call me in the office at (redacted). Thanks!

Julie A. Ruggiero
The Tyra Banks Show
226 West 26th Street, 4th Floor
New York, NY 10001

Kind of cool, but at the same time, I know she probably sent out hundreds of emails looking for parents like us. I'll give her a call, but I know how those shows can be and I'm not ALL that willing to put my family on the chopping block.

Opinions?

Another freakin' ice day

2008-03-04T09:06:00.002-06:00

Again I am home on a work day. Ice, ice, ice. Everywhere. The kids are home. The Hubby is home and I'm trying to get some work done while listening to the dogs harass the cats, the kids harass each other and the Hubster getting on to the dogs and the kids for being loud and bratty.

I need a real home office. With a door lock. And sound proofing.

Ha! I PLANTED!

2008-03-03T11:14:00.003-06:00

Sunday dawned warm and bright. Blue skies, puffy white clouds, a warm spring-scented breeze.

I was in heaven! I flung open all the windows and let the early spring in. I worked in my gardens, cleaning out beds, planning new beds.

I sat on the deck and just absorbed the sun and the breeze, listened to the birds, watched my muddy pig sty horses sunbathing in their pasture.

Oh...and the urge, the barely containable URGE to plant things in the ground overtook me. I wanted to dig and plant and be happy in the plantings.

I made that mistake last year. I got too eager, planted too early and lost four basil plants and a few flowers in a late frost. I wasn't going to do that again, it's too heartbreaking.

So, we did the next best thing. I ran up to the store and picked up one of those mini-greenhouse thingies and a handful of seed packets. Unruly picked out the seeds because this year, she's getting her own little plot of land to grow stuff in. And she can keep her over-eager little mitts outta mine, where she is just as likely to yank a flower as a weed.

So we planted 72 little peat pots of impatiens, morning glory, forget me nots, canterbury bells and a couple others whose names escape me at the moment. And for a while, my urge to plant was satiated. For now.

Of course, now I must run back and get another mini-greenhouse thingy and some veggie seeds to get my veggie garden plants started. Because with the nasty snow forecast that's rolled in, I won't be getting back into the gardens any time soon. *sigh*

Growing up

2008-03-01T10:28:00.003-06:00

"HEY! Where my teefs go?"

The tooth fairy better stock up the bank account, we have many, many more to go.

An extra day of winter...ick

2008-02-29T07:15:00.003-06:00

It's Leap Year Day. One extra day in February. One more day I have to wait until spring. One more day of cold and ice and sweaters. I'm at the hating sweaters point. I'm ready for tank tops and cut offs.

I thought I'd try to hurry spring along last night and get outside to work in my garden beds a bit. Clean 'em up, get 'em ready, but some compost on 'em. I figured if I was making an effort, maybe Mother Nature would get a clue and wake up a tad bit earlier.

No such luck. It got cold. My hands FROZE. Then it snowed. Yes. It snowed. Again. I'm so freakin' tired of the cold and the ice and the snow and the frozen mud. I want spring here. And I want it now. My daffodils and crocus are already starting to peek their little green heads out of the ground, there are signs spring is coming. But it just can't get here fast enough.

I have piles and piles of nursery/flower catalogs and I've pretty much picked out enough flowers, plants, trees, veggies and shrubs to landscape an entire city block. My fingers feel the itch to be buried deep in rich, warm earth and make life happen.

On the Uno beat

2008-02-28T11:39:00.003-06:00

Oh, this is just crazy! I'm am constantly amazed over what people get excited about.

My latest "big" story (read: fluffy fluff) is about Uno, this year's Westminster winner. He was bred and born in the little city I work in.

It's been a fun story to do, but I'm all dogged out on it. The number of emails and phone calls I've received because of this story has just floored me. It's a dog. But for some reason people LOVE this little beagle.

I've received email from the promotions guy for the Chicago Blackhawks, from the CEO of PetsMart, from the CEO of the U.S. Humane Society and more voicemails and emails than I care to count from people who just want to share either the stories about their own beagles or to rave about what a wonderful little pooch Uno is.

My Uno stories have been the most-read stories on our website for a couple of weeks, beating out all of our crime and murder stories. Which just surprises me. I always thought people would rather read about the latest stupid criminal in their city or about bad politicians.

I was wrong. Apparently readers want dog stories.

Morning excitement

2008-02-27T07:00:00.004-06:00

Words you DON'T want to hear from your 7-year-old at 6:30 a.m.:

"Mom! What is that?!"

"What is what?"

"Oh GROSS! It's something dead and Akasha's playing with it. EWWWW!! There's a dead animal in the living room!"

And dead it was. Good 'n dead. Seems the dog, once again, found the road kill 'coon we've been regularly tossing back into the woods for over a month and hauled that rotting carcass into the house while I wasn't looking.

Moms get the grossest jobs...like wiping butts, mopping up puke and picking up rotting dead 'coons off the living room carpet at 6:30 in the morning before coffee.

From out of the blue

2008-02-26T22:30:00.002-06:00

There is a woman I work with on a fairly regular basis...she is the executive director of a local non-profit organization that supports people infected with HIV/AIDS. I took the organization she works for on as a pet project about five years ago because no one else was doing it. I'm glad I did.

She is vivacious and well-spoken, passionate about the work she does and the people she helps and I admire her. She is an all-around amazing person and I'm closer to her than I probably should be, considering she is a source. She started out as a source, but over the past few years, she's become a friend.

Today I met with her for a story I'm researching and we ended up talking for more than two hours. We talk about social ills, problems with society and people in general. Yes, we even gossip about politicians and she has given me some very valuable tips.

She said something to me this afternoon that made my entire month.

Most people don't have a very high opinion of journalists. I know this and I'm okay with it. People make no secret of of how much they HATE reporters and you'd be surprised how many people think it's perfectly okay to just call up our newsroom and bitch out the first random reporter who answers the phone. Everything wrong in their lives, and in the world, suddenly becomes MY fault because I happened to be the unfortunate soul who picked up the phone. I've been blamed for some of the most incredible things, it amazes me what people think reporters are capable of doing just because they are reporters.

So anyway, reporters are generally on the same par as attorneys...people LOVE to absolutely hate us. We are vultures, blood suckers, scum of the earth...you name it, I've probably been called it or accused of it.

Anyway, today she told me I was the first reporter she's ever met who actually has a heart (take THAT you naysaying co-workers!), and that it's obvious I really care about people. (Crap, she's going to blow my hard-assed, heartless cover!) She deals with A LOT of media, including the crazy, egotistic tv people, so it's not like I'm the only reporter she's ever had to deal with.

She said she is always impressed how I come in and engage in conversation with her about real people, real things and address real issues instead of coming in armed with a list of pat questions and refusing to stray from my list. Sometimes I go in with one idea, and walk out with even better ones because I just like to talk.

That made me feel good. Reporters don't make much money. Most of us aren't in it for the awards or fame and after your first five years and your 2,000th boring-as-hell city council meeting, you give up hope that any story you write will change the world.

It's the little things we start clinging to, the little differences and changes we help make that keep us going every day. And today, she really made me feel like I was making in a difference in the lives of some people. Yes, small differences, nothing earth-shattering, but differences nonetheless.

And that's what it's all about.

Summertime...in my bed

2008-02-25T22:36:00.003-06:00

Everyone has a favorite smell. I love the scent of lilacs after a warm spring shower. I love the smell of big fat drops of mid-summer rain on sun baked dirt. The musky, warm smell of my horses on a chilly fall morning. A steaming mug of chocolate made with REAL dark chocolate and heavy cream. Vanilla on my skin.

But most of all, I love the smell of good hay. A loft full of hay is divine for all my senses and brings back so many memories of scrambling around in a hayloft or hay barn, building forts from the bales or finding a litter of kittens nestled in the wide space between stacks.

This is a load of most excellent hay. I buried my nose into the soft, green blades and breathed deeply, eyes closed. And I smelled summer. It smells hot but fresh and sweet, like riding through a field and smelling the blades and blooms as they are crushed beneath my horses hooves. I smell the golden warmth of a lazy summer afternoon and beneath the sweet fragrance there is the slightest scent of dry hayfield dust.

Here, have a closer look.

If I were a horse, I'd eat it. The blades are soft, the cure, perfect. Not too dry, not a bit moldy. I plucked a few heads of clover and clumps of alfalfa from a few bales, perfect. I wanted to crawl in between the bales and surround myself with summertime sunshine for a while. I stuck a piece in my mouth and chewed on the sweet blade of green timothy. Heaven on my tongue.

Yes, I'm ready for winter to be done.

Google searches

2008-02-23T09:34:00.003-06:00

I get pretty mundane Google search hits on this blog most of the time. Basic boring searches.

However, someone in London found his or her way here by Googling "nearly nude fit young girls blog." Which is better than "completely naked underage girls blog." It makes me wonder, was this individual looking for a young girl blogging about being nearly naked while playing sports, or a young fit girl who blogs nearly nude?

Snow Day!

2008-02-22T12:14:00.007-06:00

Snow over ice...what better reason to stay home and telecommute? We got the biggest snowflakes I've seen in a LONG time and ended up with well over an inch of the white stuff over an inch of the slick, slippery icy stuff. If you click the pics, you'll get a bigger version and a better look at the HUGE snow flakes. Sorry they are so dark, it's a tad gray out today.

Snow, snow, snow! View from the front door towards the pond and driveway.

Black dog, black Dodge, dusted in big white flakes.

"Wooly Mammoth" comes to mind. Don't worry, they are nice and toasty warm under their fluffy snow coats. The pasture, unfortunately, looks like a war zone. We've had so much rain it hasn't had time to dry and horses aren't kind to wet ground. This is my "sacrifice" paddock. I have 10 more acres of nice, (soon to be)grassy, woodsy pasture they haven't managed to destroy.

"Are you SURE you don't have any more carrots hiding in those pockets? I think you do. Come closer, I wanna check." Calypso wants to go for a gallop in the snow, I can see it in her eyes I just might oblige!

And the verdict is...

2008-02-21T13:29:00.003-06:00

My heart is apparently normal! Try telling that to the co-worker who insists I don't even HAVE a heart.

The tests show nothing abnormal, everything is good to go. *does the little happy dance* So,now the next step...there has to be something causing these chest pains and I'd really like to know what it is. Most likely it's stress. I tend to overdo things most of the time. I'm a go-go-go girl and sometimes, I forget to just stop. My best friend suggested I could be addicted to the adrenalin of constant worry and my body is finally reacting to always being "wound up," without much down time, which makes sense.

I guess I need to find more constructive ways of getting my adrenalin high, like skydiving or base jumping. I'd LOVE to base jump. Any takers? Anyone? Anyone? This year, I'm riding with the Thunderbirds when they come through for the air show. I gave up my seat this summer because I was worried about my heart, but now, no worries. Full bore ahead!

I have a confession: I've been a little apprehensive about posting much lately, mostly because of all the worrying I've been doing. I'll post more often now, I have less to worry about. And the less I worry, the more I can enjoy everything and everyone around me. And that's a good thing.

Radioactive me

2008-02-21T09:34:00.004-06:00

I had my heart test yesterday. Three hours in a hospital gown with wires stuck to your chest and radioactive stuff shoved into your veins is NOT a fun way to spend the day. And to top it all off, I had a MASSIVE caffeine headache all day because I couldn't have anything with caffeine in it 24 hours before the test. Have I ever mentioned I'm a caffeine addict? I am. Big time. I'm a five cups of melt-the-pot coffee before noon kind of girl. So no caffeine for 24 hours equals a very cranky, very headachy, very unhappy Jenn. First thing I did after the test was stop by the gas station and grab a gigantic mug of cafe' mocha. Mmmm...good!

I don't have the results yet, probably won't have them until this afternoon or tomorrow. But, the cardiologist didn't freak out or anything during the test, so it can't be all that bad. Crossing my fingers. For some reason I feel a little easier now that the test is done. Granted, I don't know what it found, but I feel better knowing it's done. I'm feeling less stressed, less worried. And that can't be a bad thing.

I did discover that I am allergic to the adhesive stuff they use to stick the little round connector thingies to my chest. I look like I've been attacked by an octopus. Seriously. I have these red rash rings on my chest and around my sides. Such a sexy look! I'm sure the red rash ring look will go fabulous with my little black lacy baby doll lingerie. Maybe I can start a trend.

I am most disappointed that the radioactive crap didn't do much. It was freezing cold going in, I could feel it going up my arm, but, unfortunately, no glowing body side effects or anything. I didn't even get any cool super powers or anything. Sheesh. I was hoping for x-ray vision or the ability to read minds.

A meme about me

2008-02-14T10:03:00.002-06:00

I've been tagged to do a Four Things meme by my mommy dearest.

Here goes;
4 jobs I've had:
1- chef
2- horse poop slinger/exercise rider
3- waitress
4- carnie

4 places I've been:
1- Luxemburg
2- Chicago
3- Lexington, Ky
4- New Orleans

4 movies I've watched over and over:
1- Practical Magic
2- The Last Unicorn
3- The Lord of the Rings
4- Legend

4 shows I watch:
1- Ghost Whisperer
2- Bones
3- Medium
4- Supernatural

4 places I'd rather be right now:
1- At home
2- Trail riding
3- At the coffee shop downtown with a cafe' mocha and a book
4- Ireland

4 people who e-mail me regularly:
1- Mom
2- Jane
3- Robert
4- Grandma

4 favorite things to eat:
1- Ghiradellis dark chocolate with cayenne pepper
2- Filet mignon
3- My veggie lasagna
4- Homegrown warm tomatoes with fresh basil, olive oil and a bit o'fresh mozzarella

4 places I've lived:
1- Manhattan, Kansas
2- Carbondale, Illinois
3- Cocoa, Florida
4- Norman, Oklahoma

4 things I look forward to this new year:
1- Planting my veggie/flower gardens
2- Riding with friends
3- Getting more stuff done around my farm
4- Visiting my mom in her new digs

Don't wanna know

2008-02-12T08:59:00.001-06:00

Wow, it's been a little while since I posted, hasn't it? Quick update: I woke up, did chores, went to work, came home, made dinner and did laundry, kept peace amongst the children, helped with homework, did chores, did some gaming and went to bed.

Rinse. Repeat.

Oh, yes, my life is exciting!

Next week I get to go spend an entire day at the cardiac specialist. See, I've been having these chest pains. I went to the ER and they didn't find anything out of the ordinary. I wasn't having a heart attack, so that's a bonus. Now I get to go have radioactive material injected into my veins, run on a treadmill for awhile and then lay under a giant nuclear imaging machine to find out if there's any blockage going on in there. The test is run several times and takes about five hours. I just adore the idea of being filled with radioactive fluid. I wonder if I'll glow afterwards.

I'm having mixed feelings about the test. I want to know that everything is a-okay so I can quit agonizing over every twinge and chest pressure and being afraid to go to sleep at night. On the other hand, if I have heart problems and six months to live, I'd really rather not know.

My dad died from heart problems. His mom died from heart disease. His brother has had a triple-bypass. With that genetic code in me, the odds aren't in my favor that everything is a-okay.

So yeah, I'm scared. Scared of what that test will find.

Freakin'

2008-01-29T13:11:00.000-06:00

This weather is really weirding me out. I'm kinda starting to believe in that whole "global warming" theory.

Today it's 60-degrees out. In Illinois. In January. And we are under a tornado watch. Usually we're under an ice storm warning this time of year and stocking up on bread, eggs, milk and ice melt at the grocery.

By this evening the temperature is expected to plummet to an more normal 17-degrees. And it's freaking me out. I want to go outside and bare my arms to the warm sun. I want to plant flowers and veggies.

Then I look at the calendar and I know I should be stocking up on more firewood and thinking about a big pot of chili or a pot roast.

This freaky weirdo weather has taken a toll on poor Unruly, too. Saturday she woke us up at 3 a.m. with an excruciating earache and a temp. I ran to the store (which is a 30 minute trip one way, I might add) at 6 a.m. for some Tylenol and eardrops. She slept most of the day. By Saturday night, she was fine and all day Sunday, fine.

On my way to work Monday I got a call from the school nurse about a 101-degree temp and a trickle of blood coming from Unruly's ear. I make the hour trip BACK to pick her up from school, then another 30 minute drive to pick up an antibiotic prescription for a severe ear infection. She stayed home again today, with the Hubster so I wouldn't have to take a second day off work. We're pretty good at sharing the stay-at-home-with-an-ailing-kid detail.

P.S. I replaced my watch. All is good in my world again.

Where's my time!?

2008-01-24T08:44:00.000-06:00

Every body has something that gets them through the day.

Mine is my watch. Yes, my watch. I depend on that thing like nothing else. I could leave my purse at home and be okay, but without my watch, I am lost. My day is thrown into chaos and confusion if I don't have my timepiece strapped to my arm. I tend to go through watches like crazy because I am so danged rough on them. This is why I buy cheap watches. They get banged up, muddied, soaked, slobbered on (not by me, by the horses, silly!) and basically abused daily. I break watch bands, scratch the face and can turn a nice leather band into a stinking strip of sweat-soaked, dirt encrusted grossness during the summer.

Last night my el cheapo watch died. It screamed for a while, which was rather disconcerting, and subsequently got tossed out onto the deck because we couldn't figure out how to turn off the high-pitched alarm. Then it died. Of course it was too late to run back to the bargain discount store for a replacement so I spent the evening glancing at my wrist, hopeful those comforting numbers would be staring back at me, sad and confused when all I found was flesh and a freckle or two.

I spent the morning in a panic and rushing everywhere. I had no watch to keep me on track, keep me moving, remind me that I have 20 minutes before I have to walk out the door. Remind me not to linger too long while feeding the horses even though all I wanted to do was breathe in their horsey scent and bury my face in their long, fuzzy winter coats while scritching the itchy spots.

The drive to work was discombobulating. Yes, there is a clock in my truck. But I don't trust it. I trust only the watch. Who cares if they read exactly the same time...I trust the watch. The truck clock could be traitorous.

I know my afternoon workout is going to leave me stressed. Not because I plan extra time on the treadmill, but because I NEED to know exactly how long I've been lifting weights for each set. My watch tells me how long I've been pumping iron. I time it. Yes, there is a clock at the gym, several, in fact, but I need to know, down to the second, how long I've been working a particular muscle group. I'm weird that way.

Right now all I want to do is run out and buy another watch. But I'm afraid I might not have enough time. Or I might spend too much time choosing a replacement. But how would I know? I don't have a watch.

A bit OCD? Maybe.

Booted from the bus

2008-01-22T09:58:00.000-06:00

So, Unruly got kicked off the bus. Again. For fighting.

But the other kid got kicked off too, so it's not ALL her fault. Apparently my little sadomasochist was inciting this 3rd grade boy to punch her over and over. She says her winter coat "felt like armor" and she wanted to see how hard he had to hit her before it hurt.

Well, he finally hit hard enough to hurt and kept hitting. So she retaliated by kicking him in his boy-parts. And he retaliated by punching her in the face and bloody-ing her lip. Nice, eh?

Explain to me how kicking her off the bus for two days is any kind of punishment for her? She HATES riding the bus, so it's a welcome reprieve from having to ride the stink-mobile. Her banishment from the bus is, however, punishment for me because I have to take her to school and pick her up. What kind of pain in the ass is that? Twenty minutes in the opposite direction I have to go for work. Which makes my commute to work about an hour-and-a-half instead of an hour. That half hour makes a BIG difference in my level of tolerance for being in the truck and on the road.

I got kicked off the bus a few times when I was in school. I never got kicked off when I was in kindergarten or first grade though! Maybe that's because I walked to school. But, I digress. I was booted from the big yellow weinie for fighting. I guess the fruit doesn't fall too far from the tree, eh?

Wild has shared with us, a few times now, that there are a couple of boys on the bus who keep grabbing her butt and boobs. As many times as we've offered to step in and report the touching, she gets upset and says that will just make it worse for her and she'll handle it herself. So far it doesn't seem like she's handling it so well. It's sexual harassment, pure and simple, and no one should have to put up with that, ever. Period.

One of the times I got kicked off the bus was for retaliating to sexual harassment that just. wouldn't. stop. No matter how many times I complained. No matter where I sat or how much I threatened him with bodily violence, this big, jerky, mean, ugly DORK grabbed my girly parts every day on the bus. He thought it was funny and was probably getting his jollies off my discomfort and anger.

It finally got to the point where I could take it no more. He crossed the line and bruised my boob with his big, grabbing, pinching hands.

I clobbered him upside the head with my clarinet case. And clobbered him and clobbered him. I couldn't stop. I'm pretty sure he was bleeding and well-beaten by the time I got done.

I got kicked off the bus for defending myself.

I don't want it to get to that point with Wild. So, despite her assurances that she "can handle it," I'm going to step in and start filing reports with the school district. If they do nothing, I'll take it a step further and file reports with the police department. Because no matter where it takes place, it's still sexual harassment and it's against the law.

Mommy laughs

2008-01-14T17:41:00.000-06:00

How wrong it is, really, to laugh at your kids? A. Really wrong? B. A little bit wrong? C. Or not at all wrong?

I'm going with C for the time being. It builds character, yes?

Unruly had an early morning appointment with the dentist to get a couple of cavities drilled and filled. She did wonderfully, didn't cry, complain or whine. But she came out of that chair looking like a stroke victim, poor thing. The whole left side of her face was droopy and drooly. And when she smiled? O.M.G.! Only the right side smiled, the left side just kind of hung there. I was waiting for the tongue to loll on out of there too, like a bit floppy hound dog.

And I couldn't help it. I laughed. And I laughed. And I laughed. She was a bit mad at me at first then she joined in and started trying to make weird faces so I'd laugh at her some more. I laughed harder because it was just so SILLY.

I'm such a bad mom. Not only did I laugh at her, but I let her skip the rest of the day of school. Because while I'm allowed to laugh at her, it's not quite as funny when the other kids are laughing, ya know?

So we spent the day riding, making cookies and watching the latest "Shrek" flick. It was a good day. We had fun, and some much needed mommy-daughter only time. That doesn't happen often enough when our weekends are filled with house chores and shopping and work around the property.

It was a good day.

Yes, I'm a horse person

2008-01-11T11:05:00.000-06:00

We are planning to have a new barn built this spring/summer. I've got the spot all picked out, the "worst case" design scenarios worked out in my head and the interior pretty much designed.

This is most likely the style we are going to have built, in dark green and cream:
Nice, eh? Four stalls, tack room, feed storage and groom stall. When you have a barn built, all they build is the exterior, so I'm still working on designing the interior, picking out the stall style, deciding on flooring and lighting and plumbing and ceiling fans and whatnot.

It's all very exciting! I'm already picking out colors for buckets and feed tubs, styles of stall plates, hardware for the tackroom (hardware, as in blanket, saddle and bridle racks), and trying to figure out how feasible it would be to have the barn wired for music.

If we had unlimited funds, and unlimited space (it's amazing how fast a barn will use up your good pasture/grass), this is the barn I'd like. It has eight stalls:
Well, heck, while I'm dreaming, I want THIS horse for eventing:She's only $25,000, pocket change!

And this one for, well, because he's gorgeous, duh. He makes my little heart go pitter-patter:His starting price is a mere $65,000. More pocket change!

Sportin' the spike

2008-01-09T09:42:00.000-06:00

A bad haircut can seriously ruin your day. Really. It can. My whole day, which had been fairly good, went down the drain with a few whacks from an over-eager, none-too-talented stylist.

It's been about four months since my last cut when I had about 8-inches cut off for a shorter, more sporty, easier cut. I LOVED it. It was cute and just long enough to stay curly and bouncy.

I went back to the same salon last night, hoping for a trim and the same end result.

Instead, I walked out of there looking almost like G.I. Jane. I don't remember saying, "Hey! I'd really like to be ALMOST BALD!"

Seriously. I think there's about an inch of hair on the top of my head. And the curls? Gone. I almost cried because dammit, now I look like a dyke. Yes, Jenn now has a dyke spike. I'm considering investing in a pile of t-shirts, flannels and a pair of rugged hiking boots to complete the look. Talk about the least sexy look I could ever imagine. Poor hubby, I'm sure he had nightmares about sleeping next to a dude last night!

It looks a lot like this:
But Alyssa pulls it off 100% better than I ever could!

Hopefully it will grow enough in about a month to look like what I'd originally had in mind. And I can guarantee I WON'T be going back to that particular stylist again!

Mirror, mirror

2008-01-07T13:05:00.000-06:00

There is something so brutally, painfully honest about mirrors. Especially those that cover the entire length and height of the wall in the aerobics room at the gym. More honest than my husband when I ask him if I look fat in those jeans. More honest than the bathroom mirror that ignores all those parts below the chest.

More honest than myself. Oh, it was painful in so many ways. I started pilates classes today and hadn't realized how much I've put on over the last year — how inflexible and soft I've become. My abs are going to be screaming at me tomorrow. Maybe I've been avoiding the mirrors and the scale. More likely I've just been dishonest with myself and making stupid excuses like "Oh, I'm just retaining water again." How dumb that sounds, especially after I was faced with the brutal, honest truth in a full-frontal assault.

Two years ago I was diligent about going to the gym five days a week. Running, lifting weights, taking classes. Then, I hit a plateau. A depressing, awful weight-loss plateau I could not seem to get across. I got depressed, and I ate more because that's what I do when I get depressed. The weight, instead of staying steady like it had for months, started coming back. So I gave up.

That's right. I gave up. "Fuck it," I told myself. I can't work-out any harder or eat any less. I might as well just call it quits and let bygones be bygones.

What a bad decision. One I began to rectify today.

Lucky number seven

2008-01-03T14:46:00.000-06:00

To my Unruly on her 7th birthday,

Where has the past seven years gone? My, oh, my. You've grown up so fast and become such an amazing little girl! A trip that has been incredibly trying at times, trial yes, but such an amazing, wonderful trip it's been so far. I've learned more from you in your short seven years than I have in my 35 year existence. Your view on life is refreshing and often so hard to argue with. Thank you for that. Thank you for making me reach out and touch my 7-year-old mind again. It needed a dusting off.

When you were barely a week old I fretted and worried, scared to death and terrified to see you so listless and hooked up to all kinds of machines. Did you know the doctor had to put an IV in the top of your little head because your veins were too tiny for an IV needle? Seeing you like that, all hooked up and taped and lying in that horrible plastic box was the worst experience of my life. But you healed, and you are independent and headstrong and so very, very smart.

And sometimes I am terrified that you are too independent, too smart, too headstrong. Too much like your mom.

You question everything. You don't take anything at face value and you are probably the Earth's youngest conservationist and protector. I can't count the number of times we've driven past cluttered, crowded subdivisions and you ask why people choose to destroy the Earth and cut down the trees just so they can have big houses. You want to know why people make so many babies when they are already crowded. You get angry when you see trash on the ground and I've had to endure lectures when I decide this tree or that tree needs to come down. "Mom, how can you love Mother Nature if you are killing her trees?"

I never have a good answer. I'm running out of good answers for your soul-searching questions. I'm afraid I'm losing that "mom knows all" status and I'm saddened by it. But I'm thrilled to see you growing up so beautifully. Because you are beautiful, inside and out. I hope you never lose your passion for life and for all the life around you. I hope you fulfill your dreams of being a zoo vet, a famous horse rider, a safari girl, a lion trainer, a "dino digger," a trainer at Sea World and one day get to visit Bindi in her treehouse in the jungle. She might learn a thing or two from you.

You don't look the other way like most people do. You are a fixer, a problem solver, a soother of broken hearts and sad moods. Don't ever lose that wonderful part of yourself. The world is going to need a whole lot of people like you to fix what we've managed to do to it in such a short, short time.

Happy birthday, my little hellion, may you love, learn and experience as much as you can possibly fit in during your 7th year.

Don't count your chicks

2008-01-02T06:32:00.000-06:00

One of Unruly's chores is to gather eggs every evening. She gets a kick out of it, especially when the chickens are in the nest boxes and trying to "guard" the eggs. Almost like an Easter Egg hunt with obstacles that peck and grumble about being bothered. We even get light green colored eggs from the Auruacana chickens.

Unruly has a little pink bucket she is supposed to use to gather the eggs. Most of the time, she uses it. Sometimes she forgets and tries to carry them all in cradled in her shirt.

Yesterday, she forgot her bucket. So she put four fresh, warm eggs in her jeans pocket and headed back up to the house, her little pockets bulging with pretty brown eggs.

And then she fell. And smashed all those eggs in her jeans pocket. Have you ever reached into a pocket filled with warm, broken egg? It feels a whole lot like snot. Warm, slimy, ooey, gooey snot. She walked in all gimpy, trying to get away from the thin drip of snot running down her leg and whining about how gross it was the entire time.

Of course, being the mom, and apparently immune to all things disgusting, stinky and slimy, I had to empty the pocket of it's mucous-like contents. After I fished the jeans out of the trash because she decided it was the best to just toss them instead of cleaning them.

She thought I was going to be mad at her for breaking the eggs. Instead, all I could do was laugh and ask her why the heck she decided to sneeze into her pocket when we have Kleenex handy! She was not amused.

The final straw

2007-12-28T12:57:00.000-06:00

As many of you know, Wild is my stepdaughter. Her mother has been pretty much absent from her life since I've been around, about 10 years. Every couple of years she'd pop back in to her life, make a phone call or two, make promises and break them, then pop back out of her life again leaving us to clean up the emotional mess.

A few months ago she resurfaced, wanting to "get to know" the daughter she never showed any interest in before. I had my doubts, my trepidations, but being the child of a father who pretty much did the same thing to me, I put those fears and doubts aside and encouraged Wild to try to develop a relationship with her Egg Donor. Everything seemed to be going okay, she was calling fairly regularly and Wild seemed happy about it.

The Egg Donor requested Christmas with Wild, which I wasn't thrilled about. I had a bad, bad feeling about it, but I kept my feelings to myself and stepped out of the way. I'm just the stepmom and I'm not going to be a roadblock in any relationship they might want to try to pursue. The Egg Donor is her mom, regardless of her crappy status, and I don't want Wild to have the same regrets I did when my dad died.

So, the pickup date was scheduled for the morning of Dec. 21. Wild was going to be gone until Dec. 31. She was going to spend that time getting to know the Egg Donor better. She did her laundry, cleaned her room, packed her suitcase and waited for the Egg Donor to arrive to pick her up.

Still, I had my doubts. I didn't want to have doubts, but I did. This woman does not have a good track record. She is not reliable nor is she responsible. But I kept my mouth shut.

The afternoon of Dec. 21 arrived and still no Egg Donor. A call was made, a conversation had. She hadn't even left her home state of Texas yet. Promises were made that she would be there by the evening of Dec. 22.

Dec. 22 comes and goes. No Egg Donor, more excuses.

Dec. 23, the same. No Egg Donor, more excuses. Wild was understandably hurt and angry yet still clinging to the last shreds of hope that the Egg Donor would come through and make her word good. Clinging to the hope that just once she would follow through on her promises.

Christmas Eve day. No Egg Donor. No calls. Nothing. Have I mentioned that I did very, very little Christmas shopping for Wild because she wasn't going to be her Christmas morning? I intended to take advantage of the after-Christmas sales for gifts to open when she came home on Dec. 31. This was not going to be a good Christmas for her. And I feel responsible.

10:30 Christmas Eve. Still no Egg Donor. Still no calls. Wild had been calling the Egg Donor's cell phone every half an hour, just to get a status check. All calls went unanswered.

My worst fears were realized. The Egg Donor wasn't coming. We would have to have to talk to Wild and ease her through the incredible disappointment, the anger, the sadness.

Once again we are left to clean up the emotional mess the Egg Donor made.

She was most angry with herself for believing that this time it would be different. She said she felt so stupid, so gullible for having hoped the Egg Donor would keep her promises this time. She cried. Oh, she cried. And my heart broke for this girl who only wanted to get to know this stranger who birthed her a little better.

I know how she feels, I know the anger and the heartbreak, the disappointment and the feeling of rejection. All the things I didn't want her to feel. All the things I wish I could have sheltered her from.

The Egg Donor drove the final nail into her own relationship coffin with Wild this time. I don't think there is going to be any coming back from this one.

Good riddance. And all I have to say is: "Stay away from my daughter, you bitch."

Seven random

2007-12-21T10:22:00.000-06:00

Sona has tagged me with a seven random things meme.

These are the rules:

Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.
Share 7 random and or weird things about yourself.
Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

My seven random:
1. I seriously need a pedicure. My poor toes are crying for a little polish and shine.
2. In the MMORPG I play I'm a cute little warlock and I love "ganking horde."
3. I hate shaving my legs.
4. I was once a carnie.
5. Sometimes I eat sardines and smoked oysters just to gross my kids out.
6. I have intentionally farted on my children.
7. I like to drink pickle juice straight out of the jar.

I am tagging:
1. Wendy at Let the Dog In! tell us some random stuff.
2. Diesel at Mattress Police. Go ahead, Grundir the Implacable, give it your best shot.
3. I'll bet Marriage 101 has some interesting randomness to share!
4. And I KNOW Dorky Dad will provide some intensely funny randomness to make me giggle.
5. Joeprah! You're TAGGED! Get busy.
6. Lynette at Chatterbox Chit Chat is creative. Let's see some random things!
7. And last, but definitely not least, I'm tagging Nancy at World Wide Rolves.

The smell: Part Deux

2007-12-19T11:12:00.000-06:00

Eau de pepe' le peu must be the "in" fragrance for dogs this season.

Either that or they LOVE baking soda/peroxide/dishsoap and vinegar baths.

The old man, Xanthe, came in reeking of skunk stink after his morning patrol of the property. And Akasha came in last night, once again, smelling like a pole cat. I think she just found the skunk she killed and rolled around in it's aromatic remains to assure deep penetration of the fragrant, fetid, foul odor in her fur. Hubby chucked it deep in the woods on the other side of the creek, but apparently not deep enough.

But Xanthe...he was definitely sprayed by a living critter. And I think that living critter may be making its home in my stash of horse hay. Oh, the horrors! What if I lift a bale and find the thing? And it sprays ME? I don't want to take a baking soda/peroxide/dishsoap/vinegar bath! DON'T WANNA!

So, what do you do about a skunk that insists on living in the hay? We can't poison it, that's just cruel and the risk of our other critters getting into the poison is too great. We can't trap it because who's going to get close enough to the trap to remove it? Can't shoot it without risking an explosion of stinkiness. I'm not chasing it off, either, too much risk.

Suggestions? Ideas? Coupons for a few cases of baking soda, peroxide, dishsoap and vinegar?

Oh, the smell! The smell!

2007-12-18T11:21:00.000-06:00

Ahhh, country living. We have the fox, hawks, coyotes, 'coons, muskrats (a family recently took up residence in our pond), owls, 'possum, vultures, quail, deer, blue heron, pheasant, turkey, rabbits, geese, ducks, etc. etc.

And, we also have skunk. Well, one less skunk, any way.

It's inevitable. When you live in the boonies your dogs WILL find the skunks. And they WILL get skunked. More than once. Our dogs have managed to get skunked several times over the past few months, but last night...oh, last night was the WORST.

Not only did my crazy dog Akasha manage to get skunked and get a faceful, mouthful, bodyful of the foul, oily stink, she killed the thing. Of course, she was SO proud of herself for ridding us of the vermin she decided to bring her odiferous present home. She left it at the back door where the smell has since permeated the house. Do you have any idea how hard it is to rid a house of skunk stink? I really don't mind the mice and baby bunnies our cat Osiris leaves on the deck by the back door that much. Sure, the gutted, headless critters are gross, especially when the entrails freeze to the deck, but at least they don't reek.

We mixed up a bucket of peroxide, baking soda and dish soap and washed and washed and washed and rinsed with white vinegar. She hated every minute of it. While she does smell better, a faint hint of the odor lingers, especially on her collar. I spritzed her with some of my vanilla bean body spray hoping to cover to last bit of smelliness and now she smells like the skunk ate a vanilla bean before it sprayed her.

I don't usually mind skunk smell too much. We can smell the skunk most frequently in the spring when they are moving around the woods and hooking up. It is a very faint smell and not entirely unpleasant. But when that stuff is up close and personal it burns the nose hairs and stings the eyes. Now I feel like my clothes smell like skunk. It's like the stuff winnowed it's way up into my nasal cavity and just decided to hang out up there for awhile. How pleasant.

Unfortunately, the stench wasn't a very effective deterrent for Akasha. And I seriously doubt she learned her lesson about the striped "cats." She's not that bright, I'm sorry to admit.

My kid's weirder than yours

2007-12-17T11:41:00.000-06:00

Kids have this knack for really embarrassing their parents. Just by being themselves.

Since she was big enough to walk and talk Unruly has had an unbelievable imagination. She comes up with incredible stories and acts them out and often requires me to play some obscure role in her make-believe world. For years she was a lioness and played that role to the fullest complete with growling, yowling, pouncing and insisting she eat her meals off the floor. Because lions don't know how to use silverware or sit in a chair, of course.

She's morphed from lion to werewolf. When the moon is full, she warns, none of us should go outside because "I don't want to accidentally eat you, mom. You know how werewolves are."

Last week she shared with her entire Brownie troop that she was a werewolf. And went into excruciating detail about what she does, and what she eats, when she's in this alternate form on full-moon nights. She runs faster than the wind and often has to avoid werewolf traps that use fresh, raw meat as bait. Sometimes she finds herself outside of her friends' homes and has to remind herself not to eat them because they are her friends. You don't have friends for dinner, she reminds.

On full moon nights she has this weird aversion to anything silver. I give her credit for playing this particular role to its fullest. Some mornings she claims to not want breakfast because she's "still full from last night's werewolf meal. I ate a dairy cow."

Nice.

When I arrived to pick her up from the Brownie meeting I was assaulted by all these little girls, wanting to know if Unruly was "really" a werewolf. And I endured sympathetic, somewhat horrified, looks from the troop leaders. Oh, the agony!

This is where I refuse to admit she's ever maybe seen a werewolf movie. I'd never expose her to "An American Werewolf in London" or any bad B-movies involving werewolves. That would be bad parenting.

We had a nice long chat about make-believe and werewolves on the way home from her meeting. I reminded her that it's okay to pretend to be a werewolf...at home. No one else needs to know about her imagined nocturnal activities.

Werewolves aren't real, anyway, I reminded.

"You don't know they're not real," she admonished in her best grown-up voice. "You've never seen one. Just because you haven't seen one doesn't make it not real. People believe in God and the Goddess and no one has seen them. If you don't believe in them, then they aren't really real. But if you believe in them, then they are real."

Ummm....I couldn't really argue with that explanation.

So I muttered, under my breath "Yeah, but werewolves aren't real."

And she glared at me.